Interactive communication tool – To guide students in higher education to build self-awareness, resilience and promote their overall well-being
This project focuses on re-designing interactions within services that can foster the development of new, more dynamic, and sustainable approaches to human interaction. This exploration is situated in the context of counseling services provided by higher education institutions in Sweden. In this context, counseling refers to the services that support and guide students during their academic journey. The project aims to improve the quality of interactions within services that provide health, career, or academic advice to students within a university setting. During my exploration, I challenge stereotypical patterns of interaction by incorporating tangible, visual, and other elements into the communication between counselor and student. Besides fostering more engaging and effective conversation, I leverage a new creative way of counseling services as a platform for promoting sustainable practices to enhance the well-being of individual students and beyond.
Interactive communication tool
Together with counselling professionals (student health and career counselors) and university students, the communication tool was co-designed to have the potential to be a valuable resource for students seeking to gain a better understanding of themselves and their experiences. The designed interactive tool serves as a visualization technique to support conversation during counseling sessions, guide students towards self-knowing and teach how to (re)connect with their valuable resources in the challenging circumstances of academic or personal life. Well-supported students with the necessary skills and resources have the potential to face future challenges and contribute to building resilient systems. This can ensure that the system remains stable even in the face of significant challenges or unexpected events in the ever-changing world we live in.
The images below display various forms of the interactive counselling tool.
Visualizing complex information can be a powerful tool, as it allows for a better understanding through visual representation, and often provides greater clarity, since it can be more memorable than words alone. Due to the tool’s rich diversity of elements, the counseling tool is designed to cater to a wide range of learners, making counseling services more accessible to a larger group of students. This initiative could help bridge the gap between those who previously lacked access to counseling or did not find it effective and those who did benefit from it.
The visualization below explains the functionality of each component of the communication tool.
The tool intends to create creative and dynamic counseling through the playful and interactive approach. This approach can also reduce the potential stigma or discomfort that some students may feel when discussing personal topics in a counseling setting. Creating a more relaxed and comfortable atmosphere that encourages self-exploration and can lead to effective counseling.
The video below showcases the tool being used in a simulated scenario where the counselling tool is activated and introduced to potential applications.
