Through research and development projects, RISE drives the development of user-centred design forward. From accessible interfaces and sustainable behavioural design to immersive XR solutions – methods are created here that ensure products meet real needs.
In our advanced UX lab and XR studios, you can test and develop usability with real users in controlled and field environments. Here, you can create interactive prototypes and immersive experiences that validate solutions before launch.
RISE brings together expertise in user-centred design, cognitive ergonomics, accessibility and sustainable behavioural design. Our experts combine UX methodology with evidence-based evaluation to help you develop inclusive solutions that support both users and sustainability goals.
From user testing and accessibility reviews to XR design and sustainability-focused product development, RISE offers services that ensure your solutions meet real needs. We help you create products and services that work for more people.
Build expertise in UX methodology, cognitive ergonomics, accessibility and design for sustainability. RISE training courses and workshops give your teams the tools to create user-centred solutions, challenge preconceptions and build internal design capabilities.
RISE offers packaged solutions for organisations that want to design for more users. Whether you need to test usability, ensure accessibility or develop XR experiences, here you will find the right support to avoid costly mistakes and achieve competitiveness.
Today's products and services often fail because they do not meet real user needs or exclude parts of the target group. There are many challenges: design choices that unintentionally exclude users, solutions that do not support sustainable behaviours, interfaces that overload cognition, and products that are launched without being tested with actual users. This can lead to high development costs, failed launches and lost competitiveness.
RISE helps you create products and services that work for more people through user-centred design and evidence-based evaluation. We test and analyse usability, review accessibility against legal requirements, develop interactive prototypes and XR solutions, and design for sustainable behaviours. We train your teams in UX methodology and design processes, and facilitate transformative workshops that challenge preconceptions and create new solutions.
Design for all is based on the premise that more people should have access to products, services and environments from which they would otherwise be excluded. By integrating accessibility into the design process from the outset, we can avoid exclusion and
Gällivare Narratives explores how mining communities can become more attractive, inclusive, and sustainable through design research, system innovation, and local collaboration. With people's stories at the center, we develop concrete tools for building the communities of the future.
Gällivare Narratives – stories as tools for social transformation
Gällivare Narratives is a three-year collaborative project that explores how mining communities can be developed into attractive, inclusive, and sustainable places to live and work. The project is run by RISE in collaboration with Boliden, Gällivare Municipality, and Medskapandebyrån, and is part of the national program Swedish Metals & Minerals – Impact Innovation.
The project is based in Gällivare – a place with a strong industrial presence and rich local engagement, but also with complex social challenges such as depopulation, lack of diversity, and a one-sided labor market. By combining place-based knowledge with design research, inclusive system innovation, and relational ethics, Gällivare Narratives is developing new methods and prototypes that strengthen people's sense of joy, optimism, and belief in the future.
The goal is to create concrete tools and working methods that can be used to support social development in Gällivare and other similar regions. The project focuses on understanding and further developing local initiatives, and identifying levers for change that can contribute to long-term social improvement.
Method and working methods
Gällivare Narratives works in three research loops where local actors gather around specific community development initiatives. By collecting stories from residents, industry, and civil society, a common understanding of the current situation is created. These stories are analyzed using norm-critical and ethical perspectives and form the basis for the development of prototypes—such as meeting places, services, visualizations, or events—that can give new expression to optimism and inclusion.
The project combines the concrete (e.g., physical initiatives and forms of collaboration) with the intangible (e.g., feelings of belonging and meaning), and is based on theories of change that emphasize the importance of creating new combinations of what has been and what is happening. By working in the space between the past and the future, new opportunities are created in the present.
A project with the potential to change
Gällivare Narratives is more than a research project—it is a movement to reinvent community building with people at the center. By listening, co-creating, and experimenting with new forms of collaboration, the project contributes to shaping the sustainable communities of the future—in Gällivare and beyond.
