NYU Langone Design Research: Wrap Up & Reflection
Team
Overview
During week 1, our team came together to discuss the following prompt:
How might NYU Langone Health improve its patient experience to be more inclusive, supportive, and positive for transgender, nonbinary, and genderqueer people?
We conducted a literature review and field research based on this prompt. Additionally, we interviewed various stakeholders within the healthcare system, including patients from the gender-expansive community, clinicians, and hospital staff. Through our research, we identified two areas of growth within the current system, a lack of trust between patients and healthcare providers and a lack of resources. Armed with this information, I developed the following problem statement:
How might we create a neutral meeting point between patient and provider while building a sense of community within the hospital network?
We narrowed the problem statement to this question because we recognized two crucial factors in providing healthcare to the gender-expansive community. The first is the history of harmful and often life-threatening medical care experienced by transgender, nonbinary, and genderqueer people. The second is the gender-expansive community’s reliance on word of mouth in finding appropriate care and advice.
The history of medical failures is important because it contributes to the lack of trust between patients and providers. It also indicates an unequal power dynamic between patient and provider that ultimately harms the patient. The use of word of mouth and community resources within the gender-expansive community is compelling. However, many of our survey respondents and interviewees remarked that finding the right information and guidance could feel quite overwhelming. Healthcare providers should look to fill these gaps and build community within their network of patients to bring down barriers to trust and empower patients to make well-informed decisions.
We continued conducting field research in weeks 2 and 3 and began sketching and prototyping a possible design solution. I took a deeper look into the patient feedback system at NYU Langone. I noticed that the feedback system was somewhat inefficient and difficult to access. I saw this as an opportunity because collecting feedback and generating actionable insights is the only way to find and address patient issues. Furthermore, a more robust patient feedback system geared towards the gender-expansive community would empower patients and show that NYU Langone Health is committed to improving their services.
I sketched out my initial ideas, including an analog and digital user journey, the feedback form interface, an internal ticketing system like Zendesk, and an internal provider database that tracked positive and negative feedback. It was essential to take advantage of preexisting technologies and interfaces to show how we could implement the feedback system within Langone. After discussing the idea with the team, we continued refining, improving, and testing it during week 4.
Mingjing developed the idea of a public-facing interface that would pull from the internal provider database and display high-performing medical providers in terms of service and inclusivity. This website would function as a resource for new and potential patients seeking a medical provider vetted through a community-driven process. Ker further developed our thinking by creating an in-depth user journey, while Yen categorized our research and brought it from the abstract into the concrete. Vasu illustrated the structure flow and developed the design aesthetic. Yen, Mingjing, Ker, and I each took on one of the interfaces and created a high fidelity prototype, while Vasu created a demo video to outline all the moving parts in our proposed system. We were also able to verify the utility of our solution after interviewing Kevin Moore, the LGBTQ+ Patient Liason at NYU Langone Health. Kevin walked us through the patient relations system currently in place for LGBTQ+ patients and gave us great feedback on our design. Finally, we all came together to present our design solution to NYU Langone and Professor Chao.
Our Design Solution
Reflection
Overall, I am thrilled with this project. My team was wonderful to work with, and I learned a lot through our collaboration. I used this project to experiment with service design, which I have little experience with but find very interesting. Our proposed design solution is valuable and would solve the lack of trust and resources we identified in our problem statement. I would like to iterate on the public-facing dashboard design if we had more time. I would also like to revisit an idea that I had in week 1, a rollout plan for the patient feedback system. I think it would be a good idea to introduce the patient feedback system through an NYU Langone-sponsored speaker series for the gender-expansive community and intentional marketing. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to develop this idea further, although we were very excited about it.
My goals at the beginning of the semester were to gain better design thinking skills and a strong understanding of design methodology. I also wanted to level up my prototyping skills. At the end of the semester, I think I achieved those goals. I now feel confident in taking a problem and breaking it down into its component parts. I also understand how to move through both the research and design processes step by step while leaving room to be flexible and iterate. I practiced my physical prototyping skills throughout the semester and improved my digital prototyping skills with this project. A surprising aspect of what I learned this semester was embracing low-fidelity prototypes and sketches. Before this class, I would not say I liked sketching, but this forced me to reevaluate that reluctance. Now, I find myself sketching out my thoughts for everything, including my other classes and personal projects. It has helped me go deeper with my thinking and get honest feedback at the initial stages of a project. It has also encouraged me to be more free and unattached with my ideas. I can quickly think through a design, talk about it, and then pivot if needed, leading to a much stronger end product.
In terms of where I go after this project and class, I hope to continue improving my design thinking skills and use the lessons learned from this semester to become a better iterator. I would also like to continue exploring both design research and service design. This project has helped me realize that I genuinely enjoy systems thinking.
