Initiate.collaborate: a design for health collaboration toolkit

Abstract

The emerging Design for Health (D4H) field has considerable potential to identify and address existing challenges faced by healthcare systems. D4H is a challenging environment for designers (and others who desire to ‘do things differently’) to work in. D4H projects require transdisciplinary approaches, making it more difficult for those who come from different perspectives to work effectively together. This paper reflects on the challenges and opportunities of those working in the field and describes the development of a practical toolkit to support teams embarking on D4H projects.

Keywords:

• Transdisciplinary
• collaborative working
• toolkit
• gamification

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to our colleagues Lauren Stewart, Reid Douglas, Tony Wan, Ezra Whitaker-Powley, Anushka Verma and Helen Fisher for contributing to this research as part of the design team that created the toolkit. We also thank all the project teams who participated in early iterations of the workshop and toolkit.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The toolkit can be accessed via www.initiate-collaborate.com

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephen Reay

Stephen Reay is a Professor, School of Art and Design and Director of Good Health Design at AUT – a design studio that has been initiated to more effectively explore how to bring together the fields of design and health and to help students better understand how they can engage with design processes in the area of health and wellbeing.

Ivana Nakarada-Kordic

Ivana Nakarada-Kordic is a design for health researcher at Good Health Design, Auckland University of Technology (AUT). Her current research focuses on the potential of human-centred design to support and enhance health and wellbeing, including developing and applying creative and empathetic human-centred approaches and methodologies for researching complex experience problems and facilitating the sharing of knowledge between designers and non-designers.

Nicola Kayes

Nicola Kayes is a Professor of Rehabilitation and Director, Centre for Person Centred Research at Auckland University of Technology (AUT). Her research draws insights from the intersection between health psychology and rehabilitation. Her recent research has focussed on understanding aspects of person-centred practice, therapeutic relationship, behaviour change and engagement, and implementing related strategies into practice to improve outcomes that matter to people.

Cassie Khoo

Cassie Khoo is a communication designer and researcher working at AUT’s Good Health Design. Her background is in communication design, specifically in branding and information visualization. She has an interest in using co-design to improve communication in healthcare.

Claire Craig

Claire Craig is a Professor of Design and Creative Practice in Health and Co-Director of Lab4Living, a transdisciplinary research group at Sheffield Hallam University. Her research focuses on the role of design in promoting quality of life and wellbeing, particularly in the context of people experiencing major life transitions.