Reflecting, Furthering Research, and Initial Ideations

Week 06 | February 20–26, 2024

This week we made a lot of progress with planning research, ideating interventions, and preparing for next week.

We worked through a bit of a block that our team was experiencing: we were grappling with the bigness of designing for better gynonc care. There were so many directions that we could pursue — all important — and we needed to refine our scope to what we felt was the most important touch point.

Reflection Leading Further Research and Ideation

With Kristin’s guidance, we reflected on what we’ve been able to learn so far. We decided that instead of looking at the entire process, it would be good for us to focus on the first 24 hours after learning you have cancer, giving special consideration to the appointment.

From there, we began to write out on stickies all of the important touch points, pain points, considerations, and anything we thought would be important for our design.

It was the first time we had seen all of our thoughts in one physical space. With this and the new constraints, we began to naturally ideate potential design interventions.

Potential Designs

1. A bag or container that holds strange little symbolic toys or figures that spark conversations or hold meaning. Can be carried to appointments as a way to help remember certain things. The bag could be helpful for carrying items for chemo treatment. Perhaps the bag contains a journal for note-taking activities?
2. A preparatory toolkit that contains cards with general descriptions, QR codes to educational videos, illustrations, etc. There could be an interactive component with the gynonc healthcare workers. Perhaps they add to their deck with appointments? Perhaps they rip up cards that they feel aren’t helpful for them. Card decks are easy to carry with you, approachable, buildable, modular, interactive. Prioritized cards could help prompt, lead, and facilitate conversation. (Eliminate scribbles.)
3. Some sort of a digital solution that helps to make the “cancer journey” more visible. It could be a web app or AR/VR solution. Allow participants to record audio, video, text, photos, or anything they think could help to tell their story. Perhaps this could also help with communicating to those who care for you and want to “check in” without demanding too much time at once. You could allow others to share things, too.

Refining Research and Thinking Toward to the Presentation

On Thursday, we worked on interview protocols and systematizing the way that we document our research. Additionally, we began thinking through an approach for the presentation. We worked some more on coordinating times for shadowing and interviews.

Interview | Person Currently Undergoing Treatment for Breast Cancer

On Friday, we interviewed a person who is currently undergoing treatment for breast cancer. There was a lot of really rich information that we learned from the interview, which we were graciously allowed to record for internal use.

While we are still reviewing, responding to, and synthesizing what we learned from her, there are a few themes we can speak to:

• they felt strongly that the way that the news is broken affects your entire journey
• treatments should be presented as being options, rather than mandatory paths toward wellness
• would have loved one way of accessing information, rather than random bits of paper
• boundaries are important both for communication and for personal and professional commitments
• provide options and guide people through the process, rather than forcing them down a path
• the most unexpected aspect of getting cancer? the time. It was the biggest shock and the most difficult thing to manage
• it’s not all bad: you learn that your support system is much greater than you may have previously realized
• a lot of time is spent on the phone with health insurance
• a journal was helpful in putting things down on the page, especially if the information is difficult to offload on a person (e.g. going into the details of neuropathy and the soreness from typing)
• you have to do a lot of research to even begin to understand that you have options and in order to make good decisions
• she talked to a lot of doctors, always seeking another opinion (perhaps may be a little unique in that aspect?)
• her brother was able to break the news to her. He’s a doctor, knows her life journey, and was able to frame it in a way that made it feel possible
• leveraged ways to help keep people informed without having to do it herself (WhatsApp group, grapevine, kept close and local friends personally updated)
• to chemo, she always wore her lucky necklace and wore the same outfit (favorite cozy, warm clothes) each time. Usually she carried kombucha, water, nuts, blankets, warm slippers, penguin cap with dry ice

The work for this project comes from the Designing for CARE course, designed by Kristin Hughes for the School of Design, Carnegie Mellon University. This course is a collaboration between the School of Design and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.