Session format: Interactive craft workshop
In this hands-on workshop, participants will co-create empathy-driven personas based on real experiences of inclusion in public services. Rooted in the approach of service design, persona creation serves as a powerful tool for empathizing and understanding diverse lived experiences, particularly those often marginalized by technological systems or policy frameworks. Rather than focusing solely on what excludes, this session highlights promoting empathy among service developers, policy makers, and other decision-makers. Through crafting activities—drawing, collage, and storytelling—participants will give form to personas that reflect emotional, psychological, physical, and social realities and possibilities across different communities. Each persona will carry a short message or call-to-action directed at decision makers, bringing tangible, human-centered insight to abstract debates on technologization and societal access. The idea is to focus on positive experiences that bring a message of hope and potential of how immigrants are well received and included to the Finnish society. The final collection of personas will be physically or digitally compiled and sent to relevant public sector stakeholders, acting as artifacts of lived experience and as gentle provocations for more inclusive design processes. An option is to ask for an audience in the Prime Ministers cabinet to deliver the message.
This workshop responds to ETMU 2025’s call for interdisciplinary dialogue around inclusion and exclusion. It introduces the service design tool of persona crafting as a positive, participatory means of showing how barriers to accessibility can be addressed and promoting ethical development of technology in public services. The session emphasizes the potential of empathy and creativity to foster systemic change from the grassroots up.
Language of session: Finnish and English – other languages are also welcome, as a hands-on activity will be conducted.