Establishing a design studio within a large healthcare organization
Helping researchers translate new and existing knowledge into user-centered products and services
Problem
Health researchers are asked with increasing regularity to bridge the gap between producing knowledge and translating new or existing knowledge into active interventions. This requires a deliberate process and involves bringing together users, communities, technologies, and domain expertise in unique ways. While research teams are skilled at analyzing the world around them, they find it extremely challenging to create end-user-focused digital or physical interventions.
Our Response
We built a Human-Centered Design Consultation Service at MICHR that helps research teams strategize and execute the creation of user-centered interventions. This service actively engages the product or service’s target audience, clarifies project goals, analyzes insights, and co-creation. It is geared towards study teams at all research stages, from proposal development to study implementation.
Outcomes and Impact
Over 20 teams at the University of Michigan have used the Human-Centered Design Consultation Service. Past partnerships have produced:
- Easy-to-use digital products for health interventions
- Patient- and community-centered health services
- Services and systems that promote connection and collaboration
- Grant proposals featuring human-centered design methodology
The service has allowed MICHR to develop key partnerships with major players in the space and is now a key offering in MICHR’s portfolio.
My Role
I led the team that advocated for, researched, designed, marketed, and operationalized the service.
“You helped at every stage of the process, from grant writing to questionnaire design to analysis. You helped ensure all stages of the project were centered on the “end-user’s perspective.” You also were an incredible educator, and provided important resources to learn HCD skills.” — OB/GYN researcher, Michigan Medicine OB/Gyn Clinic
Service Offerings
1. Design Consultation
The service helps research teams (1) gain a greater understanding of HCD and how it can help with their project, (2) create a plan for the intervention development process and (3) incorporate HCD methods and terminology into their funding proposal. Typically, we achieve this through the following three interactions:
- Initiation Meeting: Our first meeting is focused on understanding the goals for the project and the context behind it. We also use this interaction to educate research teams about HCD and gauge if it would be a good fit for the project.
- Planning: Based on the project goals, we create a plan for how the project could be carried out, including stages and resources. Occasionally, we will meet with a small group of pilot end-users to inform our work. The research team then incorporates this plan into their grant write-up.
- Proposal Writing: Once incorporated, the research team sends us a semi-finalized version of their grant. We then refine that, where needed and return it back to them.
“You were able to listen to our goals for the project and incorporate them into a logical design framework. Taking the nebulous to an actual plan is a huge help — without your expertise we would have waffled about this for much longer as we would second guess our decisions.” — Leader, WIRED-L team
2. Design Partnership
In addition to one-off design consultations, we embed in research teams to help them (1) gain deep levels of empathy with their end users, (2) co-design community-centerd solutions, (3) iterate on solutions based on user input, (4) deploy and (5) scale. Typically, we achieve this through the following engagements:
- Establishing a Participatory Design Team
- Creating an Experiment Canvas
- Leading Design and Prototyping Sprints
- Coordinating User Testing & Feedback Cycles
- Choosing the vendor and design handoffs
- Coordinating and running Scaling Strategy Sprints
“You helped in the moment and for the longer term by teach our team how to do this type of work which has infiltrated how we conduct our research. For example, the journey mapping tool is one we are now using in our qualitative research project to understand the needs of caregivers and care receivers.” — Managing Director, Biosocial Methods Collaborative, ISR
3. Design Education
In collaboration with MICHR’s Education Program, Interdisciplinary Research initiative, as well as the Participant Recruitment program, this service offers educational programming aimed at spreading design and innovation tools throughout the university community. These tools are aimed at exposing teams to the innovation vocabulary and increasing their ability to engage with design in their work.
“This presentation was fabulous, with lots of tools that I can use now and in the future. Thanks for the workshop slides and all of the resources!” — Clinical Research Coordinator, Internal Medicine, University of Michiagn Health System
Example Projects
WIRED-L, A Hypertension Management Wearables (mHealth) Solution
Digital Product Design
The MICHR Design & Innovation team partnered with scientists, healthcare providers, and community members to design a just-in-time adaptive mobile health intervention (JITAI) to increase physical activity in hypertension patients.
Read process and design publication
Prenatal Care Service Design
Service Design
We helped a multi-disciplinary team use Human Centered Design to improve prenatal care services offered to low-income, Black pregnant patients in Detroit and surrounding areas.
COVID Caregiving Experience Design
Service Design
We helped improve the COVID patient experience at Michigan Medicine by uncovering pain points in the journey and creating practical interventions for hospital and post-hospital care. We then packaged this experience in the form of a toolkit for any hospital or health system to adapt and use.
