Service design for inclusion and accessibility at higher education institutes
Abstract
Design for care and support is slowly taking shape in developing nations. Disability support services are yet to find their place in Indian universities. Residential higher education provides a cohesive ecosystem of holistic growth. Students with disabilities have been devoid of these growth opportunities due to the absence of an equitable environment. This paper presents a model to establish inclusion and accessibility services for students with disabilities in residential higher education institutes. The service model results from participatory research and design thinking led co-creation with the students with disabilities at a pioneer residential university. The service design approach considers both the student and Institute viewpoints orchestrating the backstage and frontstage of the service. It presents the idea of bottom-up initiatives to build a larger disability support ecosystem in the Institute. The paper attempts to highlight the impact of service design in creating equitable and accessible systems for institutes and students.
Keywords
Service Design; Inclusive Design; Support Services; Higher education
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3384/ecp203091
Citation
Panda, S.(2023) Service design for inclusion and accessibility at higher education institutes, in Carla Cipolla, Claudia Mont’Alvão, Larissa Farias, Manuela Quaresma (eds.), ServDes 2023: Entanglements & Flows Conference, Service Encounters and Meanings, 11-14th July 2023, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. https://doi.org/10.3384/ecp203091
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Service design for inclusion and accessibility at higher education institutes
Design for care and support is slowly taking shape in developing nations. Disability support services are yet to find their place in Indian universities. Residential higher education provides a cohesive ecosystem of holistic growth. Students with disabilities have been devoid of these growth opportunities due to the absence of an equitable environment. This paper presents a model to establish inclusion and accessibility services for students with disabilities in residential higher education institutes. The service model results from participatory research and design thinking led co-creation with the students with disabilities at a pioneer residential university. The service design approach considers both the student and Institute viewpoints orchestrating the backstage and frontstage of the service. It presents the idea of bottom-up initiatives to build a larger disability support ecosystem in the Institute. The paper attempts to highlight the impact of service design in creating equitable and accessible systems for institutes and students.