3
Democratic Empowerment
Client
Huddinge Municipality, Sweden
Date
December 2025
Practecies
Service Design
Tools
Survey, Interviews
A human-centered service design project undertaken in collaboration with Huddinge Municipality, Sweden's 14th-largest municipality, addressing a core challenge facing local democracy: despite equal formal voting rights, civic participation in Huddinge varies by as much as 65% between neighborhoods.
Context
Huddinge Municipality, Sweden's 14th-largest municipality (~114,000 residents), applied service design methodology to address a core democratic challenge: declining and unequal voter turnout, alongside a broader erosion of trust in institutions. With a 2030 goal of 82% voter turnout, the municipality set out to move beyond top-down civic processes and build more inclusive, participatory channels for residents.
Task
Foster meaningful civic inclusion and participation. To raise vote participation.
“strengthen democratic engagement”
Scope
The project used a classic double-diamond service design process — understanding citizens' needs through research, then co-creating and testing solutions — applied across several municipal services, including the building permit process, youth engagement, and senior citizen community programs.
Outcomes
Feasibility Assessment
My role centered on critically evaluating concept feasibility. With numerous concepts and a tight timeline, I prioritized pragmatic decision-making over the pursuit of a single perfect solution, ensuring the team maintained momentum without sacrificing viability.
Public Engagement
Encouraging engagement with trigger materials and fostering meaningful dialogue on a politically sensitive topic proved to be a central challenge of the project.
A way of thinking
With a mechanical engineering background, this shift was significant. I learned to treat ‘not knowing’ as a legitimate starting point and to build knowledge through inquiry, ynthesis, and experimentation.
