Re-Krut at the Malmo City Library
Participatory design project for stakeholder in Malmo, Sweden
How can we observe and communicate visions for the future?
Libraries and their intended purpose have changed over time. From being a place of knowledge gathering to a free-access, local community, our library was concerned that it would become obsolete. In an effort to connect to the communities of the city and foster a safe space for all people, my group and other interaction design student groups came to inspire the city libraries.
Methodology Plan
We started to develop our vision by spending as much time as possible in the library. Without coming up with ideas on how to fix the library, or make it more efficient in any way, we wanted to experience how it was to patrons. We talked with people, worked, read, and ate at the cafe for days before thinking about what we could do. This was fundamental in following a participatory design practice — listening and working with the affected people.
Originally, we were impressed by the nature of the library. There were so many resources and it provided a free, open space for people to spend their time. It was almost as if there was nothing inherently wrong about it.
We started to develop our vision around a specific part of the library that we enjoyed the most — Krut (the space for young adults ages 15-30). We’d been inspired by the idea that social experiences and interactions promote community, exchange of knowledge, and social connectivity. Through our research, we have found that meaningful and inclusive human interactions lay at the core of the library’s values.
Formal Interviews
Formal interviews were conducted with patrons, library staff, and specifically the staff and planning committee for Krut. Our goal was to discover why they started this section of the library, if they have challenges, and what they have tried before. We then took this information as inspiration to developing our workshop that would lead us into our vision.
Workshop
Our game starts outside the context of the library, giving our participants the chance to detach their ideas from any particular context. Though, our goal was still for our participants to explore a set of relations which is an example of a simple outcome from a design game (Pederson 2007). There were three rounds. The first round would be any straightforward word or drawing association; the second round would be relating the word to a personal experience; the third round would be relating the concept to a library: Ownership, Creativity, Collaboration, Freedom, and Empowerment.
Final Vision
In the end, we presented a suggestion for a club in Krut, as well as specific ways future Krut patrons could express ownership. Yet, what we presented was an opportunity for the library to learn from our exploration of participatory design to work with frequent Krut patrons who want to be more involved. We created this video as a representation of what we had learned along the way.
Our group internally thought of ways to show patrons their own Krut like their home. We came up with line items such as leaving stuff overnight and being responsible for the space. Next, we took our 20 insights and connected some of them to our topics. For example, leaving stuff overnight fits hand in hand with our insight “feeling of possession.” We continued this for the remainder of our ideas to understand the meaning of moving in before we put together a video prototype to demonstrate a collection of small actions that patrons might do to feel empowered by the library’s space.
What does it mean to move into Krut? This “moving in” would be representative of almost extreme ownership of a space. We wanted to work with what our patrons thought ownership was, challenging the expectation of a possibly strict, and rule-regulated space. Following our game, we collected our insights using Miro. As a group, we transcribed what was on paper, as well as translated any drawings we saw. In a process of reading, relating, and connecting, we were able to generate 20 insights/values from our workshop.