Designing public-facing outputs for Critical Care Futures
By Santini Basra and Lizzie Abernethy
This is the fifth post in our Critical Care Futures series. If you need to catch up, head back to the first post where we give a little context on this project, the second post where we talk about what the process of co-designing the cultural probes looked like, the third post where we talk about what happened when the cultural probes were sent out to the project participants, or the fourth post where we discuss how we generated insights from the probes.
This blog covers the process of distilling our research into public facing outputs. We discuss why we decided to create something for the public, the concepts we explored, the designs we ultimately chose, and the reasons behind our choices.
Introduction
From the outset of this project, our goal has been to communicate the key learnings, themes, and questions to the public in an ICU setting. Due to the unpredictable nature of cultural probes, we were unable to anticipate responses to the tasks, and therefore, we could not define the form of the output from the beginning. We instead began exploring options for how to present some of the emerging themes to a wider audience after receiving all the probes and hosting debriefs to generate insights and principles.
Designing the public-facing output
Initially, the team explored various output options. However, once an ICU waiting room was deemed the most appropriate environment, some key design considerations were raised that shaped our thinking, resulting in the following brief;
- A sensitivity to the emotional state of those interacting with it or in the space
- No rigorous maintenance
- Robust enough to endure multiple uses
- Easy to clean and appropriate for a sanitary environment
We explored various roles and forms for public-facing outputs, such as sharing participant voices, illustrative representations of a future ICU, artefacts that engage people with project themes and questions, and activities that encourage reflection on the principles.
We felt it was important that the content was centred on participants’ voices within the project and communicated some of the provocations that had arisen from the cultural probe engagement.
Ultimately, we chose intentionally mundane objects, pens and mugs, as the vehicle for this content. The idea was to choose objects that were not only synonymous with promotional material but also had utility within the environment and therefore would likely be spontaneously engaged with.
Producing and Installing the public-facing outputs
We chose the following designs for the mugs and pens, excited by their potential to be used in unexpected but relevant situations. For example, a pen questioning what “informed” consent really means might be used to collect consent, or a mug challenging the existing consent model might make its way into the hands of an ethics committee member. Our sincere hope is that these subtle yet provocative objects will inspire a new wave of discussion around data use and consent in the ICU.
We have produced these objects in large quantities with the goal of installing them in several ICUs, without framing them as final outputs. We will accompany them with posters that contextualise and explain the work. These posters are available for download now.
As this blog post is published, these artefacts are being installed in Critical Care in the Royal Infirmary Edinburgh with plans to install them in other Critical Care Units and academic settings.
About ‘Exploring Futures for Critical Care Research’
‘Exploring Futures for Critical Care Research’ is funded by a Scottish Public Engagement Network (ScotPEN) Wellcome Engagement Award. The project is a collaboration between clinicians, social scientists and designers, working with ICU survivors and research governance staff to co-design cultural probes for public engagement. In addition to catalysing dialogue, the project aims to produce a set of future principles for person-centred approaches to data use and consent in ICU, as well as a public-facing installation about the future of ICU research.
