Hanxiong Zhang

Shape the relations between citizens and government

Inside the machine

BACK TO HOME

Type: School Project
Duration: 10 weeks (Spring 2024)
Collaborator: Försäkringskassan – Swedish Social Insurance Agency

Team: Ece Güneşen, Hanxiong Zhang, Xingyu Liu

My Role: UX Design, User Research, Strategy, Prototyping

A collaborative design exploration into the Swedish public sector

This project focused on the future citizens-government interaction through a participatory lens.

We shifted our focus specifically on the people who have experienced both long-term and short-term illness. Within this context, we’ve explored larger issues that might come up, such as transparency, trust, digital and bureaucratic literacy as well as the emotional qualities of such interactions.

The outcomes are a series of speculative design proposals that question and reimagine how care, communication, and trust might be built in future public infrastructures.

Initiate by reaching out to "People"

Guerrilla Research

Snowball Sampling

Netnography

To hear the real stories in people's lives, we tried three methods to engage people and facilitate the conversation. Differentiating depth, context, and scale helped us narrow down the scope of our target group.

We heard valuable stories from people, and the quotes show how they felt. More than that, when we look at the numbers, the older demographic (33 - 66 yrs.) has more connections with Försäkringskassan. Which means they are in more need of care.

Take a closer look at people's lives

Among the 36 people we contacted, we managed 5 deeper interviews. Three of these individuals had particularly unique experiences, highlighting their situations from each of their perspectives.

" I thought they didn’t even want to give me sick leave, how can I apply for sick pension? "

" It is important to be well-educated (...) otherwise, there is no chance of fighting against FK. "

" It’s a lot easier I saw for Swedish people to apply. "

Synthesis

We made the synthesis of what we discovered and what we learnt. It also led us to focus on the people who suffer from illness.

Continue through a participatory design lens

There are a lot of stakeholders, touchpoints and relations. To tease out, we tried to view the issues from a different angle: Which part of your life is connected with the system?

Limited by time and location, we decided to host a hybrid workshop to inspire the potential meanings of connecting with the system.

The website we developed allowed participants to envision future interactions with the government, with a set of prompts that we provided.

Bridging people's lives and the system

Concept 1: Next Station

Inspired by how a metro station runs, this metaphor can support us in understanding what actions are needed in order to go from point A to B. It also helps us understand what is within the realm of possibilities for every citizen.

The journey of getting insured isn’t linear and looks different for every different individual. While the citizen is walking in the dark, a guide of which path needs to be followed is exactly what they need.

Concept 2: Policy Peek

A collaborative platform where people can see how other people can work, collaborate and share information openly. We wondered how the presence of multiple stakeholders could affect accountability of their actions.

Concept 3: Fair Frequency

What if, for people who have or are about to experience FK services, there’s a radio station where you can get personalised information?

People can browse applicants or experienced lawyers in similar situations and consult for knowledge related to their cases. There are also overlapping areas, where experts with experience in multiple fields can be found.

Next Station: stop getting lost in the system

The social insurance system is a bit like a machine, frustrating and stressful to navigate. Transparency, as the core of this concept, we believe, could enable public discourse and direct democracy. More importantly, support people and walk with them.