Design For Health Vol 7 issue 1, April 2023

Pull together

In his editorial, Pull Together, Paul Atkinson reflects on recent humanitarian disasters, crises, conflict and economic recession, and notes how people from a wide range of backgrounds and different walks of life are coming together to try and help. He believes this shows there is potential for design for healthcare practitioners and researchers to work with others to make diverse and meaningful contributions – be it in designing temporary emergency shelters or low-cost permanent housing, designing improved approaches and procedures in surgery and medical care, or designing long-term rehabilitation or care services for those affected. A few examples of the varied ways in which interdisciplinary teams working together in design for health can make a valuable difference to people’s lives are evidenced in the articles in this issue.

PhD During Covid reports

This year, the Design For Health journal recognises the impact of COVID-19 on design for health and wellbeing research and is publishing a series of short reports describing the experiences, issues and strategies employed in undertaking a Design for Heath PhD during the pandemic. The four reports published in this issue are:

• The good, the bad and the ugly: Reflections on obtaining a PhD in Healthcare Systems Design amid the COVID-19 pandemic by Cecilia Landa-Avila

The author articulates some clear reflections, such as increased meaningfulness for the researcher, greater participant confidence in online tools. She also acknowledges researcher burnout, and the need to adjust personal and professional expectations and priorities.

Comparison of face-to-face materials and outputs against the online version. By Cecilia Landa-Avila.

• A design-led PhD study into Emergency Department futures by Troy McGee

The author was obliged to adopt different methods (remote co-design and Exhibition in a box) and found that COVID-19 had become a new lens through which participants could interrogate health futures.

• Developing and sustaining a doctoral study in design research involving participants living with dementia during COVID-19 by Lab4Living PhD student Marney Walker

The researcher developed a a form of remote sensory ethnography to engage with participants, and video conferencing brought benefits and increased flexibility. Using participants’ own choice of objects and favourite spaces in their own homes supported conversations.

• Human-centred design research during the pandemic: using an online survey to inform personas of women at risk of hip fracture by Simon Richard Andrews.

The shift away from focus groups to an online survey was a necessary Covid adaptation. However, the adapted methods helped to inform the development of a rich collection of personas, reflecting the trends identified through the analysis of the survey data.

Articles in this issue

The issue includes an essay by Lars Veldmeijer et al., ‘Design for mental health: can design promote human-centred diagnostics?’, which explores problems in psychiatric diagnosis in accessing the unique, personalized, received experiences of individuals with mental health conditions, which is crucial in the development of treatment and clinical care plans.

‘Rise of the biomedical designer: engaging industrial design students in an advanced manufacturing neurosurgery project’ by Novak et al., reports on a 13-week long design challenge immersing industrial design students in a biomedical design project in a neurosurgical context which led to an increased understanding of the potential for additive manufacturing in design for health and wellbeing.