This document provides an overview and agenda for a new media workshop focused on designing online support services for women experiencing violence. The workshop will take place from February 23-27, 2015 in Helsinki, Finland and be run through the Aalto School of Arts, Design and Architecture. Participants will explore how digital media can both perpetuate violence against women but also help fight back by providing support services. Through group work and prototyping, participants will develop design concepts for new digital services that a local women's advocacy NGO can implement. The workshop aims to provide strategic design proposals and tools the NGO can use to improve their service portfolio.

1. WS – Day 1
Designing new online support services for
woman that have experience violence or threat
of violence
Andrea Botero/ Mariana Salgado /Sanna Marttila
Aalto School of Arts, Design and Architecture – Media Dept.
Helsinki February 2015

2. New Media For the Third Sector
Explores the role of social and digital media tools and
services in increasing the effectiveness and reach of the
activities and communication of third sector
organizations. The approach is based on design research
and prototyping activities carried out collaboratively with
a partner organization. (Usually a longer study project!)
Previously: Amnesty Finland, World Health
Organization, Cleaning Day, Crisis Management
Institute, Aidbrella…

3. Amnesty International – 2007 No Torture Here! Wendland, Naukkarinen, Vaalisto, Tarkiainen, Drakvik, Leinonen, Botero

4. Cleaning Day / Yhteismaa– 2013 Cleaning Day treasures (Miessner, Oikkari, Laakso),
Cleaning day App (Multiple contributors) and Cleaning day data dashboard (Panagiadouti)

5. World Health Organization – 2009 – Help to help me! Naukkarinen, Köser, Kongsgaard

6. NMTS FACTS (DOM-E5042)
- 3 ECTs
- Starts 23rd of February ends 27th of February
- Everyday from 9 to 5 pm (unless otherwise stated)
- Workload aprox. 80 hours (contact hours 7x5 35h +
Independent work 45h)
- Three deliverables: 1) Self standing 10 min AV
presentation and a blog post** 2) Manual targeted to the
partner NGO* 3) Learning Diary*
** ready by Friday
* Delivered 10 days after the WS

7. Theme for 2015
• Relationship between violence
against women (VAW) and digital
media
à New technologies are used both to perpetrate
violence and to fight back (seek help/organize
against), what does this mean for the design of
services that are digitally based?

8. Scope and aims for the WS
• Brief 0.1: Create new possibilities for women
who are experiencing violence or are survivors,
to reach out and get in touch with a local NGO
active in this field. How to do this through
digital means?
à We expect well defined concepts for new
services (and related tools) that the NGO can
continue developing –or take into use – after the
WS
à Note: Campaigns are interesting and needed,
but not within the main focus of this WS

10. What we will do
1. Lectures, readings and exercises to get familiar with
the theme (reflected in a learning diary).
2. Group work to develop a design concept(s) with a
pitching session in the end (presented with a 10 min
AV presentation per team).
3. Document and report our findings to others (In the
blog and in a manual).

11. What we will learn
• Identify some of the challenges and possibilities of working and
designing together with a third sector organization (vs a
commercial organization or public sector) addressing a complex
situation
• Define, develop and evaluate a “conceptual design” proposal for
a digital service that can be used strategically by the organization to
develop and improve its service portfolio.
• Some concrete tools and vocabulary that can be used in
service design as it intertwines with digital media design and
development.

12. How
• Concept Design as way to
strategically explore and make visible
the design space available (what
exists, what can be done with
available results, what is possible/
desirable?)
• à low-fi prototyping (limited time
resource)

13. Our partner organization for 2015:
https://www.naistenlinja.fi/

14. Exercise #1
Women experiences / Our
experiences
à Initial ideas

16. Stories as proxies and positioning
devices
• Proxies: This is a workshop of only week and we
are in Otaniemi. We don’t have much chance to
talk, meet, organize something as deep as we
want/could/should do with real people that 1)
use/need Naisten Linja services and 2) those
involved in producing them
• Positioning: Stories don’t tell the whole story,
they have a perspective (we also come with our
own baggage, can we make it visible?)

17. Brainstorming
This first round is dedicated to get as many
ideas as possible for interventions based on
existing social media (think of this more
as “recycling” and “recombining”)
Use as background what we heard from Pia/
NL and what we know from stories and own
experiences, what we have read etc.

18. Brainstorming rules
Defer judgment
Visualize
Motivate wild ideas
Go for quantity!

19. Step 1: Each person takes 10min to
empty her head from all the ideas
• Put in paper everything that pass through your mind
• Do not worry if the others have more ideas than you
• One idea in each paper, one title per paper
• Do not write a lot – draw instead
• Do not stress is the others draw better, what is important now are
the ideas you will be working with.
• A lot of ideas, crazy ideas, wild ideas
• Do not worry if then you won’t use them
• Do not think in the consequences or what the others will say
• If it is stupid no problem
• (it is ok to have fun too)

20. Step 2: Go in pairs
• Choose a part of the classroom and hang your papers
• Explain your ideas to your peer
• Both of you talk and get opinions from the other
• Select a few with potential (WHY?)

21. Step 3: Develop (2) ideas
• Try to give good/constructive criticism to the ideas selected
• Be honest and argument why something is a good or a bad idea
• Re-design: Combine and improve your ideas
• Select at least 2 to develop or improve
• Both work with 1 idea during 15min
• Think in the parts that are not yet clear: goal, implementation
details, uptake, feasibility

22. Step 4: Present to the whole group
• Give a short introduction to the 2 ideas
• Tell what you will do next if given a chance
• How the process went?
• All the others: give ideas, comments and critic to the one presenting
• Discussion

23. Design concepts
- In practice-jargon even the first
sketches which condense the
guiding idea for a thing to be
designed are sometimes
referred as “the concept”… but

24. Sound traces - Äänijälki
(2005) – Ateneum museum
Conversational Map (2005)
– TaideHalli
The secret life of Objects
(2008) – Design Museum

25. • 3 different implementations
based on the same guiding
principle ( a concept? )
“make museums visitors’ content,
part of the exhibition”

26. A concept is not the
solution nor the
final
implementation
Picture from
http://www.windowfarms.org/

27. It is not the definition nor
the exploration of a design problem
Picture by For Inspiration Only in Flickr

28. It is not the visualization of possibilities
(thoguh visual represenations play a crucial role)
PicturebyVFSDigitalDesigninFlickr

29. It is closer to the guiding idea – behind - a
design solution
PicturefromFlickrbyJordanHillSchoolD&Tdept

30. Design concepts
The description of a product (or
service) that is anticipatory, well-
founded, focused, and
understandable (Keinonen 2006)

31. Design concepts
“high-level simplifications which
guide strategic decision-making
over a thing-to-be-designed and
inform (further) detailed
designing …” (Ylirisku 2014)

32. A design concept’s
minimal expression
- a name that enables people to express and
refer to the concept in talk.
- an explanation as to why it should be
created and what it is for.
- Set of (few) principles, or rules, according
to which a design -that follows the design
concept- should be created.
- (Keinonen 2009 & Ylirisku 2014)

33. A “classical” example: the Y-job
• General Motors late 1930s (lead designer Harley Earl)
• Inspired (guided) many other Buick vehicles (not to
mention the lifestyle statement).

34. Task for tomorrow:
• make seed concepts
– Go back to work with your partner (we can also change pair)
– Reformulate as many ideas as possible into seeds of a “design
concept”
– You can take old ideas and ideas from other teams - We will
collect them for NL too!
• read:
– Chiara, Diana, Elena Pacenti, and Roberta Tassi. 2009.
“Visualtiles - Communication Tools for (Service) Design.” In
DeThinkingService, ReThinkingDesign. Oslo. http://
servdes.org/pdf/2009/diana-pacenti-tassi.pdf.