Led by the brilliant Eszter Hegymegi, Loughborough University, UK, this paper was presented at the Design Research Society international conference, hosted by the College of Arts, Media, and Design at Northeastern University, in Boston from the 24th to the 28th of June 2024.
You can read the abstract here.
The rate of homelessness is rising, resulting in a need for better-designed services to support those affected. Building on the sector’s acknowledgement that personalised support is needed to reverse this trend and based on the psychological concept of the emotional home, we propose a tool that helps those experiencing housing issues feel empowered to better express their housing needs to support teams. The tool breaks down the complex concept of ‘home’ into tangible components of the feeling of home, developed through qualitative studies. Here, we discuss the process of working in partnership with a local charitable service provider to refine the components, and we present the tool’s initial assessment and potential to mitigate the inherited power dynamics in a situation where help is provided for vulnerable individuals. This research will be helpful to those involved in the design of services to support vulnerable people affected.
You can download the full paper via this link and on the DRS Digital Library: https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2024/researchpapers/56/
Antonia Liguori / Participatory Storytelling 