Aims:
The aim of this workshop is to illustrate the importance of a user centred approach to design in healthcare, and to understand how user-centred design methodologies are applied in practice.
Background:
Bad design leads to many complications in the delivery of healthcare. User centred design enquiries have focused on subjects such as the patient’s experience of the treatment pathway, the manner in which medical errors can happen, and lifestyle decisions made to prevent illness. A body of evidence is growing to show the merits of this approach in numerous fields of healthcare.
Workshop description:
The workshop began with a short introduction to design in healthcare from the three presenting institutions (Design Council, HHCD and HELIX). Case studies were used to illustrate some targeted healthcare problems, methodologies, evidence gathered, and solutions. The relevance of design in the healthcare arena was also discussed and evidenced.
Building on this, delegates were asked to participate in a few short interactive sessions as an introduction to design methodologies and their applications to healthcare problems. These included innovation exercises to heighten creativity from a personal and organisational viewpoint. These provided immediately useful information, tools and methods. Delegates obtained an improved understanding of design, and the knowledge of resources to draw on when initiating design-led projects.

This module focuses on people-centred design as a strategy for innovation. It demonstrates the value of the approach from both a creative and corporate position. It is relevant to anyone wanting to increase their innovation potential through a people-centred approach, including clinicians, educators, marketers and business people. This is not just a course for designers but is about ‘design thinking’ – it will showcase methods for using design as a strategy for creativity through involvement of the end user or customer.

In today’s competitive market, it is important for us all to understand the context in which we are operating. User perspective is increasingly important and successful innovators create things that meet customer needs and aspirations. This workshop showed how stakeholders and users can be better understood, introducing the concept of ‘lead users’, help you to understand the value that design thinking can bring to your organisation, and ensure that your initial ideas have relevance to the real world.