Service Design for Development Interventions

The research explores the application of service design in the Global South, using case studies in Kenya and Uganda to demonstrate how human-centred tools can address multidimensional poverty and complex social-ecological systems. It proposes a conceptual framework bridging service design with the capabilities approach to better align interventions with local contexts and normative development goals.

• Service design tools, specifically archetype construction and prototyping, serve as mechanisms for understanding how users assign value over time and for identifying patterns within diverse needs and behaviours, which helps communicate design parameters to programmers and policymakers.
• Prototyping can increase local agency by enabling participants to question the fundamental assumptions of proposed interventions.
• Participatory backcasting functions as a tool for prototyping future development pathways and can encourage both individual and collective action in the short term.
• Integrating service design devices with quantitative methods enables the triangulation of findings, leading to a more thorough understanding of complex environments.
• The research establishes service design as an integrative approach for transdisciplinary development research and links it to the capabilities approach to help designers balance local context with normative development objectives.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2023). Service Design for Development Interventions. https://www.sei.org/publications/service-design-for-development-interventions/

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Service Design for Development Interventions. 2023. https://www.sei.org/publications/service-design-for-development-interventions/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Service Design for Development Interventions |date=8 May 2023 |url=https://www.sei.org/publications/service-design-for-development-interventions/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2023service, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Service Design for Development Interventions}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2023}, month = may, url = {https://www.sei.org/publications/service-design-for-development-interventions/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }