Open Access

Katharina Weitz, Ruben Schlagowski, Elisabeth André, Maris Männiste, Ceenu George

• Human-Centered AI prioritizes end-users’ needs like transparency and usability. This is vital for applications that affect people’s everyday lives, such as social assessment tasks in the public sector. This paper discusses our pioneering effort to involve public sector AI users in XAI application design through a co-creative workshop with unemployment consultants from Estonia. The workshop’s objectives were identifying user needs and creating novel XAI interfaces for the used AI system. As a result of our user-centered design approach, consultants were able to develop AI interface prototypes that would support them in creating success stories for their clients by getting detailed feedback and suggestions. We present a discussion on the value of co-creative design methods with end-users working in the public sector to improve AI application design and provide a summary of recommendations for practitioners and researchers working on AI systems in the public sector.