Over the coming weeks, we will be running a few short profiles on recent research projects run at the DHW lab. Antonio Wan has worked on a baby bath design with the Neonatal ICU staff:
Currently the design is a working prototype Antonio is looking to develop through further Postgraduate Research at the lab.
Emma recently completed her honours degree as part of the Sustainable Transport Project at the Auckland DHB.
Auckland’s roads are reaching capacity, making traffic congestion the cities biggest issue.
Transport problems around the Auckland City Hospital (ACH) are a consequence of Auckland’s auto-dependent car culture. Parking at ACH is a major source of complaint from visitors and staff and this is because there is parking capacity for 4000 cars, yet Auckland’s District Health Board employs nearly 10,000 staff members.
The project is therefore about increasing ACH staff’s alternative transport patronage to provide solutions to the parking and transport problems in the Grafton area.
Here is some of her work for the 'Free Air' campaign, a proposal devised to encourage nurses to walk to work or use public transport in exchange for a free pair of nike airs.
Note that this is currently a conceptual proposal as part of Emma's Postgraduate Research, and not a live campaign:
Here we are ready tackle another year at the DHW Lab, based in Auckland City Hospital. 2015 was punctuated by some real successes, including recognition at the New Zealand Best design awards.
We are looking forward to the challenges and opportunities in front of us in the new year.
We have 5 summer studentships currently up and running with some graphic and spatial designers, and a couple of our previous full time workers embarking on masters level study. This makes room for some new blood in the coming weeks, so stay tuned! You can follow us here on our blog for project updates and events.
As part of the work to help establish a clear front door for the hospital, the lab extended an opportunity for 3rd year spatial design students from AUT University to propose their views on a hospital 'welcome.'Under the guidance of designer and lecturer Andrew Douglas, the group worked on concepts ranging from infrastructural changes to Park road and hospital facilities, to way finding installations and services. Earlier this week, the students presented their final work to a panel in the Lab space with some great results.
Well done to all the students for wrestling with such a complex design challenge and pushing the boundaries of what a strong 'front door' should represent.
Stay tuned for more images of their work to come.
Above renders: Taewoo, Katie and Katherine
Post Graduate Graphic Designer, Eden Short has been working part time at the DHW lab while also taking on her Masters in Design. Her work focusses on exploring ways communication design can be used to ease stress and anxiety in information dense Outpatient environments. Read her project abstract below:
This project explores how a design-led approach could be used to improve the heath-seeker experience within Auckland City Hospital. Whilst addressing physical wellness, hospitals overlook the high stress, anxiety and uncertainty that come with this particular environment. This research explores the concept that large amounts of unstructured information presented at one time overwhelm the health-seeker, hinders communication and creates a negative emotional toll. This research focuses on the Starship Children’s Hospital Outpatient’s department as a prototyping area for which user engagement may be facilitated to improve the patient’s understanding of information. The scope considerations all information within the environment, yet focuses primarily on wayfinding, and secondarily health campaigns and health related resources.[1] Placing the health-seeker at the centre of the design process, there is a focus on how creating emotionally supportive information environments could improve the hospital experience, such as reducing information overload, designing for affect, and enabling transparency. Through prototyping, designs can be produced to respond to real problems, test assumptions and validate need for change.
[1] Other presentations of information cannot be ignored as they contribute to the overload of information, thus hinders communication.
Recently, Eden put together a feedback station to gauge user feedback for the current information design in outpatient clinics:
The 90 day Rosella internship programme run with DHW lab recently presented their final outcomes to both hospital staff and sponsors. The focus of the programme was wayfinding and information design at the ADHB. There were three man work streams: -Mapping and wayfinding throughout the hospital.
-Developing the Emergency department dashboard for explaining wait times to patients.
-A digital wall display in the level 5 over bridge space.
The team took those present at the final presentation on a simulation walkthrough from Car park A to the AED, pinning up full scale redesigned maps and creating kiosk mock ups along the Journey.
Well done to all who were involved in participating in and supporting this 90 day studentship programme. We look forward to seeing how these projects progress!
