The purpose of this paper is to identify factors that promote projects employing service design methods in Japanese public administration. The research focuses on the "I-OPEN Project," which is being promoted at the Japan Patent Office and utilizes methods such as analyzing the chronology of events and interviewing key persons. Upon categorizing the characteristics of the project and analyzing the elements of promotion, the resulting factors were categorized into four perspectives: player, management, the nature of the project and design education. Factors on the player include initiative and a network type that actively involves external partners. The management style that respects the will of these players and acts as a bridge between them and the organization was seen as a factor on the management. The factors observed for the nature of the project were the multi-year and the open nature of the project that did not seek concrete results in a single year, furthermore, the fact that key personnel having the knowledge and the abilities in design.

This paper covers our approach of improvement of distance learning which enabled improvement of high-level work-product such as student persona. The corona crisis has accelerated the fusion of education and information processing technology to provide distance learning in educational organizations. Our early distance learning materials seemed to have rooms to improvement as we had to prepare distance learning materials without spending enough time. The improvement effort with conventional software engineering methods such as review worked somehow but had limitations. We elaborated an improvement approach with a resilience engineering modeling method FRAM though the Five Elements of UX design to facilitate analysis and idea of improvement within each element and between elements in HCD improvement process. The combination of this approach with a qualitative interview enabled us to realize clues to desired work- products, improved student persona in addition to improved remote class materials.

This study proposes an interview survey method and an efficient information aggregation method using language processing AI to identify residents' needs with the aid of the HCD cycle, with the aim of developing regional public transport plans based on residents' needs. The outcome of this research was the establishment of an interview method using customer journey maps for a deep investigation of the living needs of residents. It was also confirmed that AI was used to extract and consolidate more detailed information about the residents' experiences.

This study investigates whether an eye-tracking device can capture the construction of mental models. It also seeks to understand the causes that impede the construction of mental models. Subjects visited the same web page five times with a break in between. The subjects wore eye-tracking device, and we analyzed their gaze data. The results showed that all subjects had constructed a mental model by the second or third session. The causes that inhibited mental model building were consistent with the usability problems we had identified in the heuristic evaluation prior to the experiment. We also were able to draw a theory that identifies areas that are difficult to use even when mental models are constructed.

This study clarifies the important issues in the Japanese voting process faced by visually impaired voters and examines possible solutions. The survey revealed that visually impaired voters face 80 problems in the overall voting process, mainly filling out the ballot. Furthermore, we confirmed that the Election Commission could address these improvement needs. Based on the found issues, a hypothesis of a "Voting Preparation Guide" to help visually impaired voters prepare for voting and assist the Election Commission in managing the polling place was envisioned.

On January 16, 2020, the first positive case for the new coronavirus (COVID-19) was reported in Japan. On March 1 of the same year, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare recommended avoiding going to "crowded spaces with poor ventilation" based on previous cases of mass infection. Our company is no exception, with some departments still continuing to work from home. Therefore, we report a hypothetical method of conducting Usability Tests under these circumstances.