Co-designing for Healthcare: visual designers as researchers and facilitators

Authors

  • Pamela Napier
  • Terri Wada

Abstract

This article describes the process, methods, and outcomes of a project that included multiple stakeholders in a participatory design process to re-design an indispensable service in the healthcare sector. The project explores how visual designers are taking on new roles as design researchers and design facilitators and what a human-centered design approach might look like within the healthcare sector of emergency management. Design methods included collaboratively visualizing the complexity of an existing context, including content development, production processes, distribution processes, issues, and perceptions; using generative tools to examine and discuss content, use, form, and function; prototyping toolkits to visually model processes, themes, devices, and technological capabilities; and evaluative surveying to collect and assess user feedback. The outcome of this project includes a completely redesigned product and service that has increased user subscription and satisfaction, as well as suggestions for future implications and improvements.

Author Biography

  • Pamela Napier
    Pamela Napier is cofounding Partner of Collabo Creative LLC, a human-centered service design firm based in Indianapolis, Indiana. She has a BFA in Visual Communication Design, and an MFA focusing on Design Thinking and Design Leadership, and is also currently an Assistant Professor of Visual Communication Design at Herron School of Art and Design, where she teaches across both the graduate and undergraduate curricula. Her research interests include the integration of values into the design process, design facilitation, and tools and methods for collaborative, human-centered design research. She has presented and deployed her research nationally and internationally, and has given presentations and facilitated workshops at design education conferences, events and universities.;Terri Wada is cofounding Partner of Collabo Creative LLC, a human-centered service design firm based in Indianapolis, Indiana. She holds a BFA in Graphic Design from the University of Hawaii and an MFA focusing on Design Thinking and Design Leadership from Indiana University. In addition to her professional practice Collabo, Terri has also served as adjunct and visiting faculty at Herron School of Art and Design for the past 3 years. Within the Visual Communication Design department, she has been requested to teach across all levels of the current undergraduate and graduate programs. Her research interests and initiatives encompass the development of new methods for stakeholder inclusion and participatory design research, along with furthering design education curricula in these areas.

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Published

2015-04-01

Issue

Vol. 49 No. 1-2 (2015): Volume 49.1-2

Section

Journal Article