Finding a way to implement a method that transmits the information found in research to the design team, handling the following phase of this Child Oncology Project.
We have to communicate complex user data (about children with cancer) to designers who will translate research into solutions.
Our challenge is to maintain the richness of information, without simplifying or scaling down, and provide the follow-up team with a clear understanding of the wide range of issues related to nutrition and movement for children with cancer.
Alongside that, the final concept is set to deliver design guidelines and boundaries, ensuring the project, in compliance with research data, is moving to the right direction.
The POKO research presents a number of complex issues, taking place in various environments such as home, hospital, or outside. This also involves several different people (parents, hospital staff, friends etc.), depending on the whereabouts of the issue at a given moment. Also, reasons for improper nutrition and lack of movement vary from patient to patient, according to their individual experience and personality.
The final concept is a toolkit, layered in a way that effectively assists the design team in learning what the research has found, getting to know the users while empathizing with them and lastly, providing the solution. The design teams are able to test their ideas on personas (which they create themselves in one of the phases of the toolkit). The duration of the toolkit is up to the design teams.
Information about children with cancer was collected through a dense research. The groundwork had been done by experts in the field, relieving us from having to extend it. The assignment required we “maintain the richness of the research".
We spent the first two weeks of the project immersing ourselves in the information that had already been provided. Having been invited to visit the hospital and Child Oncology ward, we also got the opportunity to talk to some kids and their parents, giving us insight into the human experience of their situation. We discussed our findings by reading the research data and comparing how it impacted the experience.
We could clearly feel a difference in our attitudes toward the researched issue. With an increased level of motivation to find solutions due to an increased sense of empathy, we felt connected to the children and their struggles.
As it is not possible for all of the future designers to visit the hospital, seeing it is an extremely controlled environment and the children’s well-being comes first, we also wanted to better understand what the involved researchers considered to be the richness of the data.
Therefore, we invited Quiel Beekman and Mario de Zeeuw to Hogeschool Utrecht for a meeting, during which it became apparent they felt the need for an additional layer of depth, making the data “come alive”.
Much of what had been written, had lacked a tangible emotional nuance to truly illustrate the sensitive issue at hand.
The research data provided in-depth information and sympathy but lacked empathy which was awoken in us by the human experience at the oncology ward.
However, how do we create that layer of empathy for future designers without having to visit the Child Oncology Ward?
Quiel and Mario confirmed that the best way is to preserve the richness of the data by adding more depth, making the reader empathize with the end-user (children with cancer).
The following step was to understand for whom we were creating: the future designers
Because close to no information had been provided about the future design team, we tried to keep a general design process in mind. This way, we ensured that the final concept fit the coming project phase (designing solutions), regardless of time, assignment and background of the individuals.
We used the model of ‘exploration, creation, reflection, and implementation’ (from the book ‘This is Service Design Thinking: Basics, Tools, Cases’ (Oosterom v. A. et al., 2011)) for orientation.
With the help of our coach, we came to realize our experiences with the project in its start-up phase were correlating with potential situations by future design teams. Design principles/values were created, based on our perspective of the final concept.
These principles also made the process of testing easier as we now had measurements to test against.
Understanding the designer's preferred learning style was another important aspect in transferring the data.
Through interviews and questionnaires, we enquired amongst designers about their ways of learning quickly and the factors that motivate them and help them find solutions. The majority of designers learn best through visual, verbal, physical and social means.
Through interviews (and testing at a later stage), we found that students of design like to have a mental image of the user, triggering empathy - a theory, also supported by theories such as ‘Bringing the everyday life of people into design’(2009, p. 55) by Froukje Sleeswijk Visser. The best way to achieve this mental image is using personified visuals.
After a few brainstorming sessions, having had developed the idea of layering information, we met with another expert, Christa van Gessel.
Christa is an expert in conducting research and making the data transferable to others. She helped us find a method we used to extract important information from the research, by clustering and labeling information in a logical manner. She also recommended the article ‘Bringing the everyday life of people into design’ (2009, p. 55) by Froukje Sleeswijk Visser, helping us organize each phase of the toolbox so we could achieve the desired outcomes:
As research showed that empathy was the key factor for inspiration, motivation and familiarity to the user, we saw the potential of creating a concept, including this missing link.
Remko van der Lugt (involved in the POKO project) provided a report, explaining how to create empathy with several stages, requiring completion. Each stage requires completion to minimize the risk of creating sympathy instead.
Equipped with experience with the project and design principles, we were able to start prototyping, testing and gathering “research” information.
The aim of our brainstorming sessions was to come up with as many solutions as possible, regardless of the idea's feasibility. At this point, we did not try to find solutions including learning styles, transferring data and empathy all in one.
Instead, we tried finding ideas to solve any of these elements. For example, “How can the future design team experience the confusion related to change in taste?” or “How can the designers get the main findings in a visual form?”. The idea was to merge and deepen the qualitative and interesting ideas into a concept at a later stage.
Coaches and student members of other projects helped explore the most exciting ideas, which is paramount in designing an interesting a concept for future students.
The next step was to deepen our idea - a task we found to be the most appropriate, exciting and valuable.
Some ideas were hard to let go of as we struggled to incorporate them into one, solid concept. Hence the decision to present them during the interim presentation with the opportunity to receive constructive feedback.
As expected, this resulted in renewed energy and a clearer perspective.
Two points which were given during the meeting with Tanja Enninga was:
Implementing the final concept, it was highly important to know that it fulfilled its intended function, investing a lot of time and effort into testing of the concept on design students and other professionals. In total, five testing rounds were completed, providing clearer feedback with each round conducted. After adjustments had been made, a new test took place to ensure the desired outcomes were achieved.
The POKO research presents a number of complex issues, taking place in various environments such as home, hospital, or outside. This also involves several different people (parents, hospital staff, friends etc.), depending on the whereabouts of the issue at a given moment. Also, reasons for improper nutrition and lack of movement vary from patient to patient, according to their individual experience and personality.
The final concept is a toolkit, layered in a way that effectively assists the design team in learning what the research has found, getting to know the users while empathizing with them and lastly, providing the solution. The design teams are able to test their ideas on personas (which they create themselves in one of the phases of the toolkit). The duration of the toolkit is up to the design teams.
HOW DOES THE TOOLKIT WORK
The design team gets the information in a layered manner. This way, the original research data is kept rich and alive by only adding layers (highlighting insights, creating empathy, guiding towards solutions etc.).
The layers created:
The POKO research was collected based on six children with cancer. The stories of these individuals (such as personality, background, current situation, illness and treatments etc.) have been captured in a booklet.
All the children have very different personalities, showcasing different living and health situations but with one thing in common: the disease and heavy treatments.
We gave the children nicknames for their memorable characteristics, such as “The Nature Child” or “Little Princess”, emphasizing their individuality.
Each child is introduced with drawings, illustrating aspects of their lives. The design team read the booklet to get a first look into the world of their users.
The design team gathers in a group, picks one card (from a stack of 40 cards in total) at a time, reads it aloud and discusses amongst themselves. In total, the group should pick 6-10 cards.
Each card describes a situation (research data), along with a problematic statement. On some of the cards, the designers are asked to discuss and share moments from their own situtions.
This way, they learn from research data while also seeing clearly the complexity of the project at hand and trigger empathy by relating.
All members are advised to take notes of interesting topics, as these notes will be useful in the following phase (storytelling).
Note: all the situation cards are color-coded and contain a source (referring back to research data).
Also the research data is color-coded, so that the designers easily trace the information sought on a specific topic.
In this phase, all group members create a persona. It is not relevant who this persona is (as long as it is a child) because anyone can get cancer.
Once the persona is created, the designers will incorporate it into a story. To write it, the design team must use the situation cards and the notes taken during the discussions.
When doing this individually, the designers will write different stories, depending on how they interpret the situation. All stories can then be compared to get a broadened view of the situation.
Designers are forced to crawl under the skin of the user when story writing, further increasing their affinity with the situation.
However, in triggering empathy, it is important to take a form of distance to the problem after relating it to oneself.
By now, the designers know the users and have insight in their issues. Time to solve some problems!
The designers now cluster the used situation cards under three topics; nutrition, movement and environment. For each topic, they are asked a number of problem solving questions, based on research data and the given design direction created by Tanja Enninga. They discuss and sketch solutions, reflecting each situation card.
The final phase is to take on the complete research data.
Designers have the possibility to read it all, or to simply revisit topics they find interesting. With traceable sources on the aforementioned situation cards, designers can find desired information directly.
They can also read all the information related to a topic by simply finding the data with the same color code.
To present day, this remains one of the projects that made the deepest impression on me, solidifying my affinity with the User Experience. We created a toolkit the research team wanted to use in the follow up projects and we exceeded their expectations. The iterations gave a lot of insight into our progress and with every test, we made the toolkit more interesting, compelling, and believable. We were quick to move away from wrong conclusions, saving a lot of time at the end of the process.
It was a project of mixed emotions. We've shed many a tear as a team, having talked to those parents and kids.
We knew we succeeded in communicating empathy when during prototype testing, our testers needed a moment to wipe away tears and process their emotions.
We knew then... we had done something beautiful. A truly unforgettable experience.
I am a UX designer with a passion for creating awesome experiences on multi dimensional platforms. I love to travel and explore new things.
