ABSTRACT
In public service reforms across Australia, the task of adapting to the “digital age” is prioritised over broader societal adaptations to interrelated economic, health, and ecological crises. Within this landscape, design tools travel freely and rapidly through a plurality of entangled service worlds. However, when presented as universal and neutral towards the technologies and worldviews that shape public services, design tools potentially displace alternative approaches to servicing publics. Through two co-designing events with a waste service provider and a service design workshop, we outline the ways we employ a “plurality” of design tools that catalyse Indigenous and western knowledge systems. We consider how practices with design tools that amplify plural worldviews nurtures relational thinking, allowing people to “see” tensions, consequences, and redirections for public service designing.
