'What The Fika?!': Inclusive design during covid-19

Ever wondered what it was like designing the Covid-19 booking service?

Emma Parnell, founder of Joy, has over 15 years experience across both brand and service design.

During the pandemic, she worked on the team that designed and delivered the national COVID-19 vaccination booking service.

Emma is passionate about inclusion, especially gender inclusivity, and will be speaking about designing the booking service to meet the needs of people of any sex or gender.

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Great teams that build great products need diverse sources of inspiration and learning.

Lots of businesses often do ‘lunch and learn’ sessions. We think this pinches people’s lunchtime, meaning they are often multi-tasking and distracted.

So instead we borrowed a concept from the Swedes 🇸🇪 to start ‘What the Fika?!’: our monthly-ish afternoon inspiration session.

• Fika is a concept, a state of mind, an attitude and an important part of Swedish culture. It means making time for friends and colleagues to share a cup of coffee (or tea) and a little something to eat. Fika cannot be experienced at your desk by yourself. That would just be taking coffee and cake. Fika is a ritual.

• Swedes consider it important to make time to stop and socialise: to take a pause. It refreshes the brain and strengthens relationships. And it makes good business sense: businesses have better teams and are more productive where fika is institutionalised.

We love this description as it’s all about hanging out together, away from our day-to-day, while seeking inspiration from all walks of life.