Click-guides and panic buttons: Designed possibilities for youth agency and user empowerment in online youth counselling services

Abstract

This study examines how possibilities for agency are designed into online youth counselling services, as well as how such possibilities are addressed by young prospective users during the design of the services. The data are drawn both from the design of a national website for youth clinics in Sweden and from a design project developing e-services for local youth clinics in a Swedish municipality. The agency of young users is here treated as a key concern for understanding how user empowerment is accomplished through the design of websites and e-services. Using combined research materials (i.e. two websites and focus group meetings), this study demonstrates how design features may both facilitate and restrict young people’s involvement and control over sensitive and private issues. In addition, we demonstrate how the designed possibilities for empowerment may allow young users to critically approach and effectively use such services.

Blended human-technology service realities in healthcare

“…Digital health technologies can be empowering, facilitate shared decision-making and balance healthcare professional-consumer power structures (Chu et al, 2018;Lundmark and Evaldsson, 2017). For example, from a healthcare professional's perspective, interactive digital health platforms that generate an aggregated view of real-time data through dashboards, data visualizations and targeted reports can offer an effective means of reviewing healthcare consumer's data (Granja et al, 2018).…”

“…From a healthcare consumer's perspective, health technologies can increase knowledge, allowing more informed decisions, improving compliance, reducing anxiety levels and co-creating value by participating actively in the treatment and treatment decisions (Calvillo et al, 2015;McColl-Kennedy et al, 2017). The use of digital health platforms that promote privacy and anonymity was also considered an enabler and helped empower consumers to use healthcare services (Lundmark and Evaldsson, 2017). The use of self-care technologies such as wearables and digital platforms (Apps) that monitor health can support a healthcare consumer's value self-creation by encouraging the consumer to manage their own health data by providing them with relevant information and treatment recommendations (Zainuddin et al, 2016).…”

“…In concert with the rise in calls for technology use, there are increasing calls for healthcare services to preserve human presence and ensure compassion is safeguarded (Brown, 2019). While there are numerous articles in healthcare espousing the benefits of either technology (see, for example, Chu et al, 2018;Lundmark and Evaldsson, 2017;Tian et al, 2014) or human interaction (see, for example, Adams et al, 2016;Coulter, 2012;Theofilou, 2011), Blended humantechnology service realities there are limited frameworks that address how these two approaches can be blended. Our study addresses this need to better understand such blended human-technology service realities.…”

“…Based on the discussion above and further exploration of the literature, in this section, we develop a human-centric conceptual framework (Figure 2) for blended human-technology The framework is based on the premise that each blended human-technology service realityhuman-dominant, balanced and technology-dominanthas the capacity to directly impact the well-being of engaged actors. Each reality has the potential to enhance engaged actors' well-being due to a sense of empowerment and shared decision-making enabled through the blend of human interaction and technology (Chu et al, 2018;Lundmark and Evaldsson, 2017). Conversely, each reality also has the potential to reduce healthcare consumer engagement with healthcare professionals due to lack of capacity, user anxiety, digital divide and information overload, reducing well-being (Andersen et al, 2019;Tian et al, 2014).…”

“…Health technologies, when used in a healthcare service, are thought to enable shared control because they allow healthcare consumers to participate in their healthcare (Chu et al, 2018) by increasing their levels of knowledge (Calvillo et al, 2015), providing access to information (Dedding et al, 2011) and enhancing communication between consumer and healthcare professional (Smailhodzic et al, 2016). Furthermore, research alludes to blended human-technology interactions being empowering, facilitating shared decision-making and balancing healthcare professionalconsumer power structures (Chu et al, 2018;Lundmark and Evaldsson, 2017;Tian et al, 2014).…”