NTIF SPEAKER
About the session
Interpretation services and service design – are we building what the procurers request or what the users need?
Sweden’s procurements of interpretation services often mean detailed call for tenders, that more or less exactly describes how the requested services should work. One could say, that the interpretation services of today are designed rather by procurers than by providers.
And at the same time, the interpretation agencies rarely perform their customer dialogue with the end users, but instead with the authority’s officials – themselves far from actual operations.
This session is about whether it’s possible to perform user-oriented service design despite the reality of procurers and bureaucrats. Mattias Schain is the founder and previous CEO of Tolkvox AB, a startup that in the spring of 2019 was acquired by Semantix. Tolkvox decided early on to develop their service in an iterative user dialogue – which in practice had to happen behind the back of the bureaucracy. In 2018, their app Tolkvox was awarded at the inUse Awards for user friendly service design.
About Mattias
Mattias experienced the 2015 shortage of interpreters from his vintage point as a political advisor at the Swedish Prime Ministers office. Based on his previous experience as an interpretation user as a court lawyer, he founded Tolkvox AB, Sweden’s first digital service fully focused on demand interpretation. In 2019, Tolkvox AB was acquired by Semantix, where Mattias now serves as business development manager for on-demand interpretation.