Universal Design Symposium – 26th October 2016

At the Lab we’re about designing with people for people. That means ensuring we make spaces inclusive for our patients, visitors and staff.

On Wednesday a few of the team attended The Universal Design Symposium hosted by the Auckland Design Office, part of Auckland City Council. It was a great event with a range of speakers showcasing examples of inclusive design and providing some interesting disability sector context. Whilst 24% of New Zealanders identify themselves as having a functional disability today, that doesn’t account for those with sensory or brain impairments. It is also a snapshot in time, at some point many of us will develop complex needs as we age.

Key note speaker Valerie Fletcher, Executive Director of the Institute for Human Centered Design (USA) provided the platform for the day and put it nicely when she said that variation in ability is the norm, not the other way around. It just happens to be highlighted at the margins, for those with complex needs. When designing inclusively, it’s not about compliance with disability building codes, there should be no “us” and “them”.  Among the speakers we heard from Dr Zena O’Connor, who also popped up to the hospital to speak at a Grand Round for us and has provided great feedback on some of our concepts for Wayfinding changes. Thank you Zena!

The day also included a tour of different Auckland city locations where good design is taking place. Some of the team can be seen below on the shared spaces tour.

Little things can make a big difference to our environment, whether it is insufficient colour contrast to differentiate furnishings or reflective surfaces that may be seen as a pool of water to visually or cognitively impaired visitors to the hospital. You can see some small examples of the DHWLabs work with inclusivity in mind here.  The Auckland Design Office has a universal design toolkit coming before the end of the year that will add to their Auckland Design Manual.  We’re hoping to share our Healing Environments insights that have contributed to designs in our pending Carpark A entry refurbishment.

The Best of the Best

Last Friday night the team glammed up and headed out to the Best Awards.

The lab was stoked to be finalist this year in four categories: graphic design, product design,  public good and interactive design.

After a couple of months of anticipation it was finally time to find out who the best of the best were!

We are so excited and proud to announce how awesome our students did!

Charlotte Dickson's children’s book ‘Lin Breaks her Arm’ was awarded bronze on the night. This was the only student project under public good that was a winner in its category.

Our resident boss cat, Eden Short’s student project‘ Wayfinding for healthcare seeking’ won a silver award in graphic design.

We can’t forget Antonio Wan, with his three piece suit looking pretty dashing on the night. He took home a gold pin for his design “The Little Ones” that he did for his honours project last year. He is currently working on his masters project. Can’t wait to see how it does!

Congratulations to all our students! We are incredibly proud of all your hard work. Also thanks for all the support our students have received to help them towards this great achievement.  

Objects as Dialogue: Lab for Living

Recently, some of the researchers and designers from the DHW lab spent time in the UK with our colleagues from the Lab for Living in Sheffield. This opportunity arose from the successful Catalyst Seeding Grant: 

Catalyst: Seeding funding is provided by the NZ Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand. This programme is aimed to facilitate new small and medium pre-research strategic partnerships with a view to developing full collaborations that could be supported through Catalyst: Strategic over time.  The application centered around developing the partnership the DHW lab has with Sheffield Hallam University’s Lab4Living, and AUT Centre for Person Centered Research and will explore design opportunities for people living with dementia in hospital and the community. 

One of the specific learnings for us here at the DHW lab was the research they are conducting around 'objects as dialogue' i.e. how objects and exhibited artifacts might facilitate user engagement around a specific social issue or research question and provide valuable inputs to a design process. 

In a session with a community support group for elderly and dementia sufferers, the ‘Exhibition in a Box’ was introduced; a specific discussion topic was given to the group, and in pairs we took turns using an object from the exhibition to interpret the discussion topic.

The ‘Exhibition in a Box’ exercise was developed as a portable version of the successful 2012 ‘Engagingaging’ exhibition; a series of everyday timber furniture pieces modified in some way to provoke discussion about the needs, preferences and aspirations of older people in the home, in order to design better products and services that support independence in later life.

Instead of bringing elderly people to an exhibition, the ‘Exhibition in a Box’ transforms the environment of the elderly person into the exhibit. The product is now being used across Europe by clinicians looking for creative new ways to connect with their elderly patients.

Engaging Aging Exhibition

Engaging Aging Card Deck.

Eden Short AKA Boss Cat @ UX Homegrown

Last week, our wayfinding specialist Eden Short presented at the very first UX Homegrown conference, hosted at AUT City campus. The conference hosted a hundred-something professionals, passionate about designing and delivering great user experiences across all types of industry. Presenting in the 'Unusual Places' category, Eden shared her knowledge and experience designing for the emotional impact of navigating through healthcare, using the Starship Outpatient experience as a case study. 

“Wayfinding is rapid learning in unfamiliar environments”

Although not conclusive, it's fair to say Eden's talk was a crowd favourite, and provided industry validation to the fantastic work she and team are leading across wayfinding at Auckland City Hospital. Well done Eden!

Multiple Sclerosis Guide Abroad

The MS co-design project supported by the DHW lab was recently presented at the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers Annual Meeting in Maryland, USA.

The banner that summarises the work was very well received at the conference, attracting a lot of attention which is hugely encouraging for project team. Out of 200+ posters, four awards were given and the MS Project banner won the Linda Morgante HOPE award for ‘innovations to impact patient care’. The event was a meeting attended by 2000+ MS Specialists: neurologists, nurse specialists, researchers and allied health so it was quite significant to receive this recognition! The judges described the project as ‘trail-blazing’ as nothing like this in the MS world currently exists.

It’s a great endorsement of the design work developed for the project banner and patient/GP relapse guides themselves.

Patient Experience Week

Patient Experience Week is an opportunity for the Hospital to draw attention to the voice of our patients. This year the theme was 'communication,' and a number of designs have been created by the lab to draw attention to this event:

Our stories

An exhibit of photo-story boards will be displayed in public areas of Auckland City Hospital and Greenlane Clinical Centre. These displays will show peoples’ unique stories, with a particular focus on how communication impacted their experience of care.

Animation

A short video about patient experience and some of the improvement work underway. Look out for these on the ‘Video Wall’, Level 5 at Auckland City Hospital.

Sharing stations

Share your experience or give us suggestions using one of the 'share-it stations’, located in Level 5 of Auckland City Hospital and in Building 4 of Greenlane Clinical Centre.