Abstract
Healthcare is a major industry, but we know little about the involvement of design researchers in this field. We report the results of a focused mapping review and synthesis (FMRS) of healthcare design research. We systematically reviewed six leading design journals to map the contributions to date of the design research community in healthcare. A search of the Web of Science yielded 75 articles, of which 44 were ultimately selected for analysis. We extracted data on article characteristics, design research topics, and healthcare-related themes to map the current state of design research applied to healthcare. We discuss the main patterns that emerge from this review, including a focus on products and hospital settings, a disregard for prevention, a strong commitment to stakeholder engagement, or a focus on the early stages of design. We lay out perspectives for future research and discuss the biases potentially incurred by the FMRS methodology.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 https://www.designsociety.org/1/About±the±Design±Society, consulted on 14 April 2022.