SHIFTING GEAR: A process to accessibility guidelines

SHIFTING GEARA process to accessibility guidelines

Design for Government, Final report

Aalto UniversityMay 2014

Sasha KazantsevLilli M. Mäkelä, Eeva-Maria PiiparinenBárbara Paz Rebolledo BustamanteNina Wester

Team Accessibility & Communications

A process to accessibility guidelinesSHIFTING GEAR 6 June 2014 | Public 2

CONTENT

INTRODUCTIONShifting Gear in a nutshell .................................................................................................................................... 3

DEVELOPMENT PROCESSStage O. Briefing ................................................................................................................................................... 4

Stage 1. Planning ................................................................................................................................................... 10

Stage 2. Piloting and prototyping .................................................................................................................. 12

Stage 3. System image ....................................................................................................................................... 17

Stage 4. Wrap up & concept presentation .................................................................................................. 20

BOTTOM LINE. Possible future ..................................................................................................................................................... 21

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...................................................................................................................... 24

APPENDIX........................................................................................................................................................ 25


Current ministry guidelines are widely misread on various stages of building process. In the end final user may get hurt and businesses might lose money on unnecessary municipal restrictions. To guarantee the new guidelines to be as clear as possible

Challengeministry may focus on two simulta-neous processes: development of the guideline per se and reinforcing part-nership network via the dialog with the actors. There is a need of not only ministry reaching out to the publics, but general common understanding in between process participants. The actors will avoid fear of change, if it is clear why the change is suggested. This is important since to proceed

Current regulations &guidelines

INTRODUCTION

Shifting Gear in a nutshellThe Ministry of the Environment guidelines on safety and accessibility of built environment will be updated soon. What new could they bring in along the update? Shifting Gear is a project aiming to assist The Ministry of the Environment in supplying guidelines with material thatopens up the need behind the regulations. Provided with the ‘why’ in the regulations, planners will have a better chance to empathize with the final user. This concept proposal focuses on changing the process of guideline development, opening it up to more active citizen participation.

any projects need internal ministry approval, and this approval is only granted when support of the publics is evident. Many of the problems of current regulations are already well known in within the Ministry and the work on improving the situation is going to take place. The idea is to create guidelines that are elaborate enough to be understood without a need for further interpretation.

Regulations are provided along with guidelines, that are meant to open up the text of the law, without bonding the reader with any particular details. At the moment, regulations are guidelines (R&G) are being devel-oped inseparably and therefore both end up in the same paper in solid text

without any visual or semantic differ-ence. As a result many of the building process stakeholders confuse guide-lines for part of the law which create tension to further work of the Ministry with the topic. The potential of guide-lines as a proactive tool that prevents undesired construction fails is yet to be realized. The process of guideline development begins with obtainingopinions of the publics about the change in the certain guideline or regulation and further moves on to

drafting a proposal. The draft is being sent of for evaluation and after the feedback is collected, another draft is being put up. At the moment the Ministry’s Communication depart-ment organize workshops that involve most active representatives of various stakeholder groups. Howevermost of the communication on the guideline process happens online via email.

‘Shifting Gear’ concept

The project you find described below is a concept of the possible commu-nication strategy that allows The Ministry of Environment to produce valid guidelines independently from

regulation writing process. Proposal embraces the idea of creating a long term strategic partnership the wider groups of actors. Particular attention in the project was paid to quick prototyping of solutions and rendering systematic vision of the field. Tradi-tional process of communication that Ministry executes is missing the link in between the government

and publics. The Ministry of Environ-ment is seen as a main client in this concept proposal. Information input and output from the Ministry itself were chosen as points of intervention with the major intention of suggesting an alternative to monologue style of legislative affairs. Alongside with this procedural change in within the Ministry is being suggested.


DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

It happens seldom that projects dealing with such important phenomenons have an open task. We were offered the topic of communication around the concept of accessibility. Other than the direction we were not facing any restrictions and were particularly encouraged to look into the field and define the need for the change on our own. Our earliest brief was containing of the following bullet point listing, that has later gained accents, but remained targeted towards the client.

First brief

Stage 0. Briefing

Scale of the change opportunities for the project include the following directions:• Comprehensive data exchange• New communication tool• Penetrative involvement of accessibility in the concept of building planning. Making space for the work of regulations throughout the building process• Locate gatekeepers of law/need interpretation

Main target of the projectRenovation of Regulations & Guidelines

Team resource10 weeks, 5 designers who work in the fields of media, graphic,industrial, spacial and service design and an approximateproduction budget of 150 €.

Client’s expectation of the end result• Better Communication• Differentiate regulations & guidelines

Problem areas:• Lack of visual accessibility issues communication in various stages of building process• Communication is not considering use case and often is ignored when people are stressed


Looking into the system of building construction helped us identify the key communication phases. What we were to discover is that there was no sufficient dialog in between the public and the ministry. As well the returning link from construction and planning professionals with The Ministry was at times obscure. This way commu-nications coming from the ministry is linear. It is a monologue. What if it is a dialog, we wondered? On the other hand, the product of the ministry are reg and guidelines, that both today

Targeted brief

are being perceived as bonding. A new set of guidelines is released every 10 years today along with each new set of regulations, which also calls for the obvious process. What if we could separate regulations and guidelines on the creation process level and break the link of percep-tion? Could in this case the guide-lines react on changes sooner and be released more often?

1.

This is how the ministry impact is realized today. First the regulations are done for construction companies, they build the building and publicreceives it as a final user.


After we saw these opportunities unfold (which we talk about further in this chapter), we ended up with the two-folded project objective:

Working with the ministry we should aim to initiate separating making processes of regulations and guidelines from each other and ensuring a dialogue in between the process actors and the government.

2 .


3 .



Today the demand for accessible dwelling in Finland is growing rapidly. The population is getting older and ensuring level of acces-sibility in building stock is seen as a task for the government. The goal of The Ministry of Environment is to create regulations that ensure a safe built environment and provide equal accessibility rights for all groups of citizens. Safety and accessibility regula-tions are the current tool used by theMinistry to make an impact on the built environment. The nature ofregulations is reactive, meaning that as any other law they are created to be used by lawyers should the misfortune happen for the law to be broken. This dictates the way the

Project background

content of regulations is shaped. Law must be flexible and regulations give a lot of space for interpretation. The law must be fair and clear. Regula-tions derive from the law. Guidelines give space for interpretation and add up to the minimum level of accessi-bility secured by legislation. There are currently at least three kinds of guideline interpretations that are being regularly used by profes-sionals: a Ministry version, a munici-pality interpretation and a RT -kortti, which is a commercially available guideline providing minimal solutions for requirements of safety and acces-sibility.

4.

This is how the processes go in construction now, with an image showing people included in different stages and never meeting all together. Our challenge here is to establish communication among all the actors. The most beneficial part is to open up the process of guideline development for public participation.


5.

People participating in the process understand the role of R&G differently. What you see here is the regulations coming from ministry, municipality, NGO’s and commercial producers.

Opportunity 1:Establishingdialogue

Before any development takes place in the Ministry, opinions from the publics and experts are collected. All groups must be involved at this initial process. Once properly running dialog system provides trust and support of the wide audience. Transpar-ently shared access to the dialog will ensure that none of the interested groups have been forgotten. Trans-parency and early reach are as well important to establish the hospitable media context for the project. At the moment connection in between the construction companies and public

media is a lot stronger than the Ministry has, therefore any misunder-standing may end up being broad-casted. Asking people to look for their own solutions lets them experi-ence the practice that ministry goes through and understand the topic better. And when public wishes are clearly displayed, the work of the Ministry becomes a lot easier.

Opportunity 2:Guideline development

The processes of developing guide-lines and regulations should split in order to meet different categories of readers. New guidelines are written to facilitate the planners on their way to obtaining the building permit from the municipality. At this moment

municipalities has done a lot of work interpreting ministry guidelines. Incorporating this resource into the single block of common guidelines can create a great income and signifi-cantly release financial tension on the Ministry.

Opportunity 3:Integration with the traditional way of working in the ministry

The key contact people usually become recognized as communi-cation nodes rather naturally. More of them are going to come evident through the dialog activities. There is a vast potential for the Ministry in recognizing workshop and dialog participants and partners, rather than contributors. The knowledge and executive resource shared among the network is massive. Involving traditional methods of ministry work is important to be able to reach maximum possible support. Many participants in the support network are more used to deal with

common planning tools (such as post-it brainstorming sessions). For some, in fact, even a written feedback might be a challenge in expressing the valid opinion. Due to this workshop activities could be emphasized and taken to another level in within the Ministry.


Opportunity 4:Finding compromise through planned process iterations

It is nearly impossible to reach the absolute consensus on such compli-cated topic as accessibility of build-ings. A suitable compromise, however, is always possible. It means that the project should repeat the

process of collecting feedback few times and constantly update publics with the news. Amount of repetitionslargely depends on complexity of the topic and can not be generalized.

Opportunity 5:Widening up the concept of accesibilitytowards inclusion

In the beginning of the course, we were encouraged to think about mainstreaming accessibility, make it an issue that touches all. We thought about things such as love, all kinds of wheels; mums with prams, people with bikes, old people, wheelchair users, people with heavy grocery bags or not so much upper body strenght etc. Could the surround-ings/built environment actually be more friendly and inviting to us all? We played with words, such as love & wheels, mennään, easy - iisi… The outcome was a name for the sticker campaign pilot: #IISIMENO (fin. for ‘easy going’). It can be easily applied for other areas and uses, such as a neighbourhood e.g. iis arabia, iisitoukola, iisikamppi, iisikallio and so on. The phrasing refers to acommon act and objective rather than pointing the obvious issuesright away. Here is what Isto Vanhamäki has written about the semiotics of thewords related to accessibility in his paper Esteettömyys yhä tärkeämpää luontomatkailun kehittämisessä / Obstacle free movement is increas-ingly important in developing nature tourism (Find original text in Appendix). “In the Finnish language, the word accessibility is often trans-lated with esteettömyys. The literal meaning of that word is ‘obstacle free’. The word ‘accessibility’ is posi-tive, because it has the promise of access to something. Esteettömyys on the other hand contains the word este, obstacle that has a negative meaning, though the wordrefers to something positive. Another possible word to be used in the Finnish language is saavutettavuus

which is closer to accessibility. The problem is that saavutettavuus can also be understood as something being for example technically acces-sible for the user. With the word esteettömyys one can better illustrate the removal of barriers. When accessibility is considered in Nature tourism it is of paramount importance to remember that acces-sibility affects all nature lovers, not just the ones sitting in a wheel-chair, as one might easily think. The concept of obstacle free move-ment and accessibility are not being used in Finnish research to describe tourism that is suitable for all. There-fore it is justified to use of the word accessibility in alongside with the term ‘matkailua kaikille’ which is the translation of ‘tourism for all’.

- - -

‘Tourism for all’ has a more positive tone than ‘obstacle free’. It does not limit the concept to concern specific groups. However, it is possible to see that ‘obstacle free’ is used as a tool to implement tourism for all, in which case the use for the word is justified. At the same time the negative conno-tation of the ‘obstacle free’ concept isless apparent and it’s obstacle relieving effect emphasized.”


When we in the beginning moved to the planning stage we imagined the process of our proposal to be linear with stages following one another in time. So we assumed that first your reach for the better connection to the process stakeholders, and when this one is well established you move on to the guideline implementation. This picture of the process was yet to be broken in the future, however, it gave us a good rapid start into the conversation.

Stage 1. Planning

In our initial practical work we have roughly followed the course struc-ture: starting with system thinking and later elaborating on it with the research and data analysis. However the approach we took to the project was slightly reversed. As the actual building process communication has a lot of complications and very manyaspects, we have jumped into proto-typing solutions as early as in the problem definition stage. Trying to cluster opportunities as they are seen above, we have been isolating areas of work on the go. Plenty of project twists came from the interviews we did early on with various stakeholders. Each group we have spoken to was adding complication to the system, yet at the same time narrowing our brief to the crystal form. Our research was divided in three

categories:1. Regulations and guidelines2. Feedback tools and processes3. The Ministry’s inner processes

1. Regulations and guidelines

The interviews for this part were done with Erja Väyrynen, Niina Kilpeläinen, Martin Poganitsch and 3 other archi-tects from Schauman Arkkitehdit. The interviewees were given the task toread out loud the regulation and guideline: 2 The prevention of falling and misstepping, and talk about how they interpret it. They were also asked to talk about how they use the different design tools (Regulations and guidelines, Municipal Guidelines, RT-kortti and guides made by acces-sibility activist) in their work.


2. Feedback tools and processes

This part of the research was conducted as semi-structured inter-views that lasted about 40 minutes per person. The people interviewed for this category were Tarja Posti,

Heli Rantanen and Jaana Hyvärinen. They were asked about the need and use of feedback tools and the ulti-mate purpose of interaction between citizens and establishment. The inte view also contained a part where a map of Helsinki city feedback loops was discussed and redefined.

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Regulation and guideline: 2 The prevention of falling and misstepping.

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The interviewees were asked to talk about how they use the different design rules and guidelines in their work.

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This is the first draft of the feedback loop map. It was used to initiate conversation, find loopholes in the system, correct mistakes in our research and to find the right people to connect with.

3. The Ministry’s inner processes

We felt it was important to get more familiar with The Ministry’s inner processes. For that purpose we

invited Erja Väyrynen to join us in a semi-structured interview followed by a game interview. More about the game interview in chapter 2. Piloting and prototyping.


Stage 2. Piloting and prototyping

Prototyping dialogue methods

Inclusive dialogue with wide audience: perception comparison interviews

In order to see how different actors approach regulations and guide-lines we have picked the most typical example and asked people to read it aloud and explain what they read. Predictably each reader has a personal interpretation of the text, however further comparison shows the most obvious places for furtherimprovement. This method provides a great opportunity to connect all the

actors in the building process around one particular topic. If for example these interviews are filmed, they can have a great role in increasing empathy between the different interest groups. In this way ministry workers can actually witness the kind of reaction their work might call for. In our work the interviews were also used to review the process along the way. Myths were debunked, the links between different actors were confirmed and new links were discov-ered.

Making opinions and problematic visible to everyone and openly asking for possible solu-tions resolves in deeper trust from the final users of both guidelines and built environment itself. Opening up the process allows to build partnership with people seen as the nodes to the communities. Partnership, rather than consultancy is important when guidelines are shifting from only suggesting the minimal frame to actually opening the mindset of the planner towards new concepts of the space usage.

Dialogue to publics: #IISIMENO

We tested our feedback tool with a sticker campaign that was meant to include and activate citizens. The sticker campaign #iisimeno (easy going) is a prototype of a communi-cation tool that we used to test,how citizen participation could be carried out on a grass root level. It is aimed at sustaining dialogue between government and citizen, boosting the inclusion of the publics in legis-lative system. We had the privilege

7.

NO, CHANGE and YES stickers

8.

Poster

to test it with people from Loppukiri and Merenpisara with encouraging results. Loppukiri is a senior dwelling association in Arabia, Helsinki and Merenpisara is a MS dwelling asso-ciation. The idea in brief was to organize a small a sticker campaign to promote accessibility in the built environment with stickers that had traffic light color coding: Red for ‘no, this does not work, because...’, Green for ‘yes, this works, because...’ and Yellow for ‘change, here I would suggest...’


We explained the people of Loppukiri and Merenpisara that we wanted to hear their opinion about accessibility and that this could be a new way to communicate about this issue to the government and municipality. We moved around in the neighborhood of Arabia and observed accessi-bility spots related to moving around: stairs, roads, ramps, doors, railings and elevators. The participants could

mark a spot with the sticker and together we learned how to publish a photo of the sticker to social media, using twitter and instagram. The data generated during the workshop canimmediately be accessed online, which allows discussion to grow over it or be supported by it. Iisimeno can be found at instagram.com/iisimeno.

During the 5 hours of doing the iisi-meno sticker campaign, we had about 15 people joining us, coming and going at their own pace. Theparticipants marked 15 accessibility spots. The aim was for each partici-pant to mark one spot, the goal was achieved. Working with these seniors and wheelchair users showed us thatthere is a need and desire to be heard. With a combination of modern technology, virtual communities and very traditional presence, there is a lot to learn from these end users. Iisimeno revealed a true need for a wider range of channels to commu-nicate about issues close to people’s everyday lives. The sticker campaign is a miniature of what can be accom-

plished with more resources if it would be widened out to a larger public. The benefit of iisimeno is three folded: designers and end-usersget to meet each other, the end users get to voice out their opinions and lastly the Ministry will get a look on how end-users and designers work together. The next step would be for the Ministry to get involved in the two-way communication plat-form, whichever form it would take. As a follow up to iisimeno, the results will be shown to the participants in a brochure, poster and presentation inJune 2014.

9.

IISIMENO in social media.


Talking inside the government roadmap process visualisation

A metaphor of a roadmap can be used within the ministry and munic-ipalities for conversations about development process. It is impor-tant to let actors see that the process of change has it’s reasons and also an end. A blank roadmap similar to those in the board games is an easily understood metaphor; it embeds step by step principles and the concept of time, as well as it invites actors to place themselves in particular spots in the project plan and reflect on it. A blank map can be filled during a conversation and later transferred into qualitative conclusions. The bigger process diagram on the back of this paper is largely a result of the road map interview session with the Ministry partner. The development process was studied using a game. In the gamethe player moves on the gameboard and explains what happens on every step. The interviewer observes and asks the player to elaborate when needed. The idea of playing the game is to find out what a game board (i.e. governmental decision making process) consist of in it’s entity. In the course of the game the player will

establish who of the other birds and pigs (i.e. actors in the process) will join the player and how they will contribute to and benefit from the game. It is important to find out what stages require which players to join in and what their needs and agendas are. The player is also asked to point out the lava sections (i.e. threats andrisks) in the game. The interviewer will try to discover the milestones and rewards along the way towards the finish line. Finally there is also a finnish line with a compelling end result of the game. The function of this type of inter-view is to dig deeper into the govern-mental decision making process and to establish milestones and a compelling future that motivates all actors. This process visualisation method has it’s background in back-casting. ‘Game interviewing’ can be seen as a further development of backcasting and something that was first tested during this course. The interview lasted 1.5 hours.

9.

We worked with Erja Väyrynen to get more insight of the Ministry’s inner process. On the photo Erja is being interviewed with the Roadmapboard.


Prototyping layout & content update

9.

Cutting up the original regulations and guidelines and taping them back together again. We did our own R’n’G jam, rearranging the guideline layoutphysically by cutting out and and placing back the elements in the way that allows you to read easily. This mock-up helped us to continue our work. It gave us new material for the interviews and for the graphic design to begin.

Legal Jam: Physical document layout redesign according tothe common readers’ logic

This method came from Legal Jam organized by Stefania Passera,who is a Doctoral Researcher in Aalto University, basing her study on the way lawyers use visual commu-nication in their papers. It became apparent that even during the 30min

session and with very limited under-standing of the paper contact one can suggest a lot more clear struc-ture to the guideline, that makes the point of its suggestive nature very clear.

Storytelling in the guideline: making an accent on the reasons behind the laws


In order to develop guideline for better understanding you need toconsider reordering the layout and content revision. Today guidelines address what you do, how you do it and do not mention why is it so. To include the “why’s” (the actual

reasons) into the guideline, we suggest tangible storytelling method. Which will allow the professional to decide themselves upon better building solutions. We got the “why’s” from dialog with professionals and publics.

Final outcome

When we put all those proposals together our first prototype of theguideline was ready. New regulationsare going to be in a separate book,

and to accompany them this proto-type can be used as a base for the guideline, where each of the regula-tion explanations is presented as anindividual paper card.


Stage 3. System image

Defining actors and connec-tions: metaball metaphor

It was nearly impossible to present our case using most traditional visual mapping methods. Showing data flow across the field using only the arrows and icons was not an honest solution. What was born out of a long struggle is a metaball visual meta-

phor, that connects the stakeholders on the diagram into a communication cloud, in which link and distance of the actor can have various degree of being pronounced visually. It is notextremely mathematically factual in our examples, however it has a great potential as a hybrid diagram method.


Simultaneous processes: loop of finding compromise

As we have already mentioned, through the process interviewswith the government representatives we have grown to realize, that in the real scenarios all the tasks are being processed simultaneously. In fact the processes depend on your situ-ation at work where you begin and

how you continue. The processes we suggest are blending into what is already working in the ministry, which is workshops. Today the workshopswith all of the stakeholders are happening to plan the ministry papers. In order to reach a compro-mise between all of the interested parties, you need to repeat each of the processes few times.


Finding compromise means getting an agreement among the interested parties about what do you take in consideration from the data you collected and where you apply it. In our experience: Content from guide-line reasons goes from #iisimeno, layout suggestion come from the perception comparison and theroadmap method is connected to planning. Note that the only thing

that iterates is a guideline not the law, so we can release new guidelines more frequently. Findingcompromise might be a complex project in itself and it can be developer further as aspecific physical place within the ministry, where workshops and communication takes place.


Stage 4. Wrap up & conceptpresentation

Making hard to grasp a concept on an art poster

The deeper we have dived into the system, the more complex our story have become. At some point we have settled for an idea that only providing the ministry with a good looking report and a slideshow will make not enough input. Our challenge was to leave The Ministry of Environment with and engaging and easy to follow manual to our concept proposal, therefore we have laid out and printed a fold-able poster-manual. You may find it attached as a pdf file to this report.


BOTTOM LINE.

New regulations &guidelines

The regulations are going to be provided separately in a compactlist, that will not be calling for any ambiguity or misinterpretation. New guidelines will be developed inde-pendently via process specifically put up for it. New guidelines will contain regulation as a title, human-centered stories explaining why exactly is thisregulation relevant and an example on how can this regulation be put to life to meet minimal requirements of

safety and accessibility. Quality guideline is created as a result of communication in between all the stakeholders. Municipality input is now not targeted on creating own interpretation, but on working with the Ministry on the common paper instead. This allows construc-tion businesses to gain permissions easier across the land, using similar decisions.

How things could beThe heart of the shift towards princi-pally new guidelines is a procedural alteration. The legislative process of making regulation will remain tradi-tional, whereas guideline develop-ment goes through a significant change. This is important in order to facilitate planners in communicating with a municipal Building Control Department. New guidelines are the bridge tool in between the munic-ipality and the architect, clearly defining the reasons behind the regu-lations.

As the real life situations always change and our environment must reflect the pace of modern life, flex-ible communication tools are needed to track the changes in the society and supply the guidelines with valid examples. The aim here is to reach a level of a dialog in relationship with other partners and the public.

Possible future


Step by step development: each of the pilots work independently

9.

The ideas we have tested here can be imple-mented in various places: this came up in our expert interviews, as well as our own observa-tions.

However we have been developing the system as a holistic approach to the problematic today, separate parts of it could be as well implemented as individual projects. One will inflect

the need to pull another, however the emphasis might fall on a single change, depending on the situation in The Ministry of Environment.

FInding resources: connecting on this project with municipali-ties and other ministries

It became entirely apparent that The Ministry of Environment has nearly no financial or executive resource to update its own processes soon and fully. However the way out of the situ-ation could be found in the problem itself.

It is evident that the work on inter-preting the regulation is happening in every municipality of the country. It is done by entire municipal offices as well as by single activists and moder-ators. What if The Ministry could provide a healthy application for those to do it in collaboration? What if the dialog tool, involving publics will be the project for few ministries at the same time?


Things to change next time

As time was of the essence in this course, we did the research andprototyping in a swift pace not worrying that much about overlap-ping or constraining ourselves to proceed in a linear manner. This

gave us the freedom to absorb a lot of ideas, information and influ-ences from the lectures, research and prototyping. It seemed to work quite well in spite of the chaotic nature of this approach!If this exercise was to be repeated, it would benefit from a meticulous

Place for a designer in the process

There is always a place for an improvement. But are we the bestpeople to make an improvement? It became rather transparent to us, that design practices have a very direct and tangible application in the work

of the public sector. It is, however, as Marco Steinberg was saying many times, is a promise we as designers must keep up to. Design tech-niques were developed to facilitate a lot less rigid processes. Govern-mental routine has a lot of underwater stones, that can make an unprepared designer very uncomfortable with the

Follow up

The concept presented here took shape within three weeks, whichmakes optimistic about the future of this approach, once Ministry resources and dedication is put into it.

The actors who played an essential part of this outcome are all partof the new network that has emerged from this course. We want to continue working with them in one way or another.

research plan alongside a crea-tive set of tools and methods. It is vital to save some some space in time management and budget for discovery and new innovations, in order to receive results that go above and beyond the original brief.

work. However what was an amazing practice is the networking in within the class and particularly within the group. Day to day support of like-wise minded people was important to carry on through the stone walls of legislative reality.

About DfG class

The class has encouraged students to pursue careers in public design. It has showed that it is possible to work as a designer in this field, but that it is also hard work. We have been introduced to national and international actors and it has opened a lot of new paths to follow. Is it a path worth pursuing? The need for more public design. During this class there was a seminar organized by the Ministry of Finance and the need for more pracademics was repeatedly brought up in relation to the collaboration between operative work, the academic research world and governmental decision making. The term ‘pracademic’ was intro-duced to us in the seminar ‘Research and knowledge management in the development of the state administra-tion’ by professor Geert Bouckaert, The University of Leuven, Belgium. In his lecture ‘The Dissemination of Scientific

Knowledge in Reforming Public Administration – an InternationalPerspective’, he spoke about the importance of having people whocan mediate between academics and practitioners; people who have the skill to understand academic and practical work. The need for more knowledge in HCD came also up in a lecture ByMaijaliisa Junnila from THL (National Institute for Health and Welfare). The lecture ‘Legislative proposal impact assessment - Case SOTE reform (Social welfare and health care reform) ’ (Speakers: Leading expert Maijal-iisa Junnilainen, THL and Research Professor Sakari Hänninen, THL) brought up the problematics of having too little resources devoted to researching and tracking the reform process. The Social welfare and health care reform in Finland is and will still be a hot topic for the years to come. It is important to have a enough resources available for monitoring,

analyzing and steering the reform. THL would benefit from having ateam of pracademics helping it to steer the reform and mapping outthe process. Public design is the spot where designers can make a contributionto society working as professional data processors and -visualizers, intermediaries, HCD experts and executives just to mention a few positions. There is a real need for designers who have the desire to enter and be instrumental in societal work. SEMINAR DETAILS: 7.5.2014 Seminar: Tutkimus ja tiedolla johtaminen valtionhallinnon kehittä- misessä (Research and knowledgemanagement in the development of the state administration). The seminar was organized by Valtionva-rainministeriö (Ministry of Finance).


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you!This project was a journey full of support and insightful meetings. We would love to express the deepest gratitude to the Seungho Lee, Hella Hernberg and Juha Kronqvist, who have made it possible for us to meet and work together. The effort that they put into the Design for Government class will reflect in the work of many of us.

We would also like to thank our partners on the project inside and outside the University, who shared their time and expertise:

Erja Väyrynen, The Ministry of The Environment

Tarja Posti, Helsinki Public Works Department

Heli Rantanen, Helsinki City Executive Office

Niina Kilpeläinen, The Threshold Association Kynnys ry

All the people from Loppukiri and Merenpisara

Martin Poganitsch, Schauman Arkkitehdit

Leealaura Leskelä, Director of The Finnish Centre for Easy to Read

Jaana Hyvärinen, Aalto University School of Art and Design

Stefania Passera, Aalto University School of Art and Design (Legal Jam)

Antti Raike, Aalto University, Senior Advisor in accessibility, Student Services, Doctor of Arts

Esteve Pannetier, Guest Lecturer & Mentor at Aalto Design Factory

Maria Laisi, Aalto University School of Art and Design, MA student


APPENDIX

TITLE PAGE(SIZE 680 x 480,

SIZE OF THE FOLDED HAND-OUT170 x 240)

SHIFTING GEAR

A CASE STUDYMinistry of Environment guidelines on safety and accessibility of built environment will be updated soon. What new could they bring to the system? Shifting Gear is project aiming to assist ministry in supplying guidelines with material that opens up the need behind the regulations. Provided with the ‘why’s of regulations planners will have a better chance to empathize final user. Concept proposal focuses on changing the process of guidelines development, opening it up to active citizen participation.

Esteettömyydenkäsite

Suomen kielessä käytetään englan-ninkielisestä accessibility-termistä usein sanaa esteettömyys. Accessi-bility on positiivinen sana, koska se lupaa pääsyä jonnekin. Esteettömyys puolestaan sisältää sanan este, joka on negatiivinen vaikka käsitteelläkokonaisuudessaan kuvataankin positiivista sisältöä. Toinen mahdoll-inen sana, jota esteettömyydestä voisi suomeksi käyttää on saavutet-tavuus. Saavutettavuudella voidaan kuitenkin ymmärtää hyvin monen-laisia asioita, kuten esimerkiksi, että jokin asia on ylipäätään teknisesti

käyttäjän saavutettavissa. Sanalla esteettömyys voidaankin paremmin havainnollistaa esteiden poistamista. Luontomatkailun esteettömyyttä pohdittaessa on ensiarvoisen tärkeää muistaa, että esteettömyys koskettaa kaikkia luonnossa liikkujia, ei vain pyörätuolissa istuvia, kuten helposti ajatellaan. Käsitteitä esteettömyys ja saavutettavuus ei ole suomenk-ielisessä tutkimuksessa juurikaan käytetty kuvaamaan kaikille sovel-tuvaa matkailua. Näin ollen esteet-tömyys-käsitteen rinnalla on perusteltua käyttää matkailua kaikille -termiä joka on käännös englannink-ielisestä tourism for all ilmaisusta. ”Matkailua kaikille” on sävyltään positiivisempi käsite kuinesteettömyys, eikä se rajaa käsi-

teltävää asiaa vain erityisryhmiin.Voitaisiinkin nähdä, että esteet-tömyyttä käytetään kaikille sovel-tuvan matkailun toteuttamisen työkaluna, jolloin esteettömyys-käsit-teen käyttö tässä tarkoituksessa onperusteltua. Samalla esteetömyys- käsitteen negatiivinen leima jääenemmän taka-alalle ja esteitäpoistava vaikutus korostuu.

SOURCE:Metlan työraportteja 52: 51–56 Isto Vanhamäki: Esteettömyys yhätärkeämpää luontomatkailun kehit-tämisessä

LINK TO PDF:http://www.metla.fi/julkaisut/working-papers/2007/mwp052-06.pdf

SHIFTING-GEAR-POSTER.PDF

A print quality pdf of the double-side poster we have produced as tangible outcome of the project can be found together with this report. In case the file is missing do not hesi-tate to contact either of us via emails provided and get hold of your digital or paper copy.

CONTACT INFO

Team Accessibility & Communications:

• Sasha Kazantsev, [email protected]• Lilli M. Mäkelä, [email protected]• Eeva-Maria Piiparinen, [email protected]• Bárbara Paz Rebolledo Bustamante, [email protected]• Nina Wester, [email protected].

Ministry of FinanceSeminar

Seminar: Tutkimus ja tiedolla johtaminen valtionhallinnon kehit-tämisessä (Research and knowledge management in the development of

the state administration). The seminar was organized by Valtionvarainminis-teriö (Ministry of Finance).

7.5.2014

Documents

SHIFTING GEAR: A process to accessibility guidelines