2021
Improving City Services for Helsinki’s Diverse Communities
Services
User Research • Cultural Insights • Facilitation • Community Engagement
Team
Service Designers & Researchers from Kuudes, City of Helsinki representatives, Role: Lead researcher for Arabic-speaking community
Designing Public Services That Include Everyone - Finland
Discover
Co-create
Make Sense of Data
Align
Strategy
Overview
Helsinki is one of Europe’s fastest-diversifying cities. Yet many residents, especially immigrants and non-native speakers, struggle to access or fully understand public services. Under the umbrella of Kuudes and with a brief from the City of Helsinki, we set out to deeply understand how Arabic-speaking residents experience municipal services, uncover barriers, and highlight gaps where service delivery does not meet community expectations. The goal: to build a foundation for more inclusive, accessible public services across the city of Helsinki.
Understanding Lived Realities
Listening to the Voices Often Left Out
My role focused on generating deep insights from Arabic-speaking communities, one of Helsinki’s largest and most diverse immigrant groups. Through semi-structured group interviews and group discussions, which were conducted online, I built trust, encouraged honest storytelling, and explored how people navigate social, health, education, and employment services. Each conversation revealed the gap between intended service design and lived experience, highlighting barriers rooted in language, expectations, cultural norms, and system complexity.
Building Trust & Participation
Preparing the Ground for Honest Dialogue
Because technology, timing, and unfamiliarity with public institutions often prevent meaningful participation, I personally contacted each participant beforehand. These conversations built rapport, explained expectations, and reduced anxiety around joining an online interview. On the day of the session, every participant arrived on time, an outcome that speaks to the importance of relational groundwork in multicultural research. Safe space led to deeper insights, richer dialogue, and more meaningful contributions.
Mapping Experiences, Emotions & Needs
Surfacing the Real Barriers to Access
The interviews revealed consistent gaps: limited clarity about available services, confusion when navigating bureaucracy, and cultural mismatches between residents’ expectations and the ways services are delivered. We synthesized insights into themes linked to communication, trust, accessibility, and cultural context. These findings became critical evidence for the City of Helsinki, showing where services unintentionally exclude or overwhelm specific communities. This work did not just collect stories; it created a clearer understanding of how residents actually experience city services.
Impact
A Foundation for More Inclusive Public Services
This project gave the City of Helsinki a clearer understanding of how Arabic-speaking residents experience public services, revealing gaps that were previously invisible inside the system. The insights directly informed the city’s broader work on social sustainability, accessibility, and inclusive service development. For the first time, cultural expectations, emotional barriers, and practical challenges were captured in a structured, evidence-based format that city teams can use for future decision making. This work became a reference point for future multicultural research and strengthened Helsinki’s ability to design services that truly reflect its diverse population.
100%
Participant Attendance
Trust-building approach and ensured the city received complete, high-quality insights.
3X
Deeper Cultural Insights
The voiceover feature had for subscriptions compared to those who did not have access to the feature.
60%
Increase in Identified Service Gaps
Helped the city prioritize where improvements are most urgent.
// As the project was deep research based and to comply with GDPR all pictures all for visual purposes //
Reflection
Working closely with immigrant communities reaffirmed one of the biggest truths in public service design: services don’t fail because people are difficult—they fail when systems aren’t built with people’s lived realities in mind. One powerful insight from this project was how differently the word “assist” is understood across cultures. For some, assistance means guidance and clear instructions. For others, it implies emotional reassurance, hands-on support, or even advocacy. These interpretations shift based on a person’s upbringing, education, cultural norms, and past experiences with institutions. When a system defines assistance one way, but a community understands it another way, friction is inevitable. If repeating this project, I would push for even broader community participation across more neighborhoods, and deeper collaboration with city employees themselves. The gap between resident expectations and institutional structures is still significant—and closing it requires cultural competence, empathy, and a higher level of design maturity within public systems. This project strengthened Helsinki’s ability to create services that reflect the people who live here, not just the structures that manage them. And that is the true foundation of inclusive public service design.
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