A participatory design approach to the study of cross-cultural factors in the design of public services

The constant synergy of people moving physically around the world and also interacting remotely in real time has led to the emergence of multicultural societies that are composed of members of varied backgrounds. Services designed for multicultural societies require attending to diverse social, political, environmental and economic demands. In the context of more demanding and distinct users, services and products need to adapt to different communities. In this paper, we reflect on cross-cultural research as an approach that acknowledges culture’s influence in society, providing the lens to investigate users and providers for the development of public services. We aim to explore how a participatory design strategy can uncover cross-cultural aspects relevant for service design. We present an 18 months research that studied these concepts focusing on services in State Libraries located in two cities: Brisbane (Australia) and Curitiba (Brazil). The participatory design strategy was used to collect data from participants about their understandings of what ‘Design’ is, in reference to the services offered by the public libraries in both cities. We evaluate how a participatory design method assists the flow of information across service design, facilitating the identification of users’ needs and service requirements from a cross-cultural perspective, contributing to the creation of new services for multicultural societies. This paper presents commonalities and contrasts in the views of participants from both countries and exposes the needs and service requirements from a cross-cultural perspective, contributing to the discourse around the importance of co-creation of new services for multicultural societies