Abstract:

The goal of this study was to investigate how service design can be utilised in the community centred design in Africa and what type of service design processes could benefit local communities? The paper argues that service design and community centred design have a similar ethos. Service design can be utilised to include community members and stakeholders in the community centred development process. This makes service design a practical and participatory development tool in the African context and an important tool for societal change. The study was focused on the case studies of the User-centred design for Innovative Services and Applications (UFISA) project that was developed around an important multi-disciplinary area of education, technical and societal development and user-centred design of information and communication services for the communities in Africa. The research data collected during two UFISA intensive courses where service design methods were implemented. The two community development cases were in South Africa (2013) and Botswana (2014). The data was analysed by systematic coding and categorization in order to develop a synthesis which captures empirical eveidence. The within-case analysis was used to describe the themes and concepts that emerged from the data. Based on on the outcome of the study, the paper proposes a service design process that can be applied to an African development context to solve societal challenges.

Keywords:

Human-centred design, service design, community-centred design, UFISA, Africa.