Services Mapping
Co-Design / Design Anthropology
Definition
Services mapping is a subset of participatory mapping, which focuses on the services in a community and how community members access and interact with them.
“In participatory mapping, emphasis is placed on local knowledge and on building relations between community members and researchers”
— Suzanne Maman, Using Participatory Mapping to Inform a Community-Randomized Trial of HIV Counseling and Testing Pg 370
Procedure
Preparation
Bring mapping supplies, such as large paper and markers
Make sure to contact community leaders that can give you access and help others understand your goals
Make sure to reach out to participants that are familiar with the community and the services that are provided there.
Bring recording device
In person
Make sure that you create a comfortable space and address your participate in a kind manner to set them at ease.
Explain the goal of the mapping.
Help them understand that you want to understand the way that they utilize services in the community. Encourage them to create the map as if they are trying to help someone in need find every possible service the community has to offer.
Start from the beginning of a typical day and work your way through prompting the participant to draw their path and mode of transportation, as well as what they do and who they interact with along the way.
Then ask about a non typical day, what are other important services they utilize.
Analysis
Take the maps and overlay them. Find the commonalities and differences.
Then go back to the recordings and try to understand why the differences occurred between participants.
Lastly try to identify opportunity spaces in the maps.
Use Case
While researching waste management for the city of Bloomington me and my team interviewed a rock climbing instructor named Chris about the services he uses while living in Bloomington.
Strengths
Mapping has been used for thousands of year for a good reason. It is a way for one person to communicate how they interact with the world with another person.
Services mapping can be greatly helpful when trying to take inventory of what services a community already has and where the shortcomings are. It is also very effective at discovering weaknesses in transportation.
Weaknesses
One problem with asking people to map their lived experience is that sometimes when you tell someone to portray their lives they take liberties and are not fully truthful.
