Project Objective

What makes a ‘good’ bedside ventilator, diabetic insulin pump, mobile therapy app, triage process, or experience of care? As advances in technology expand our capacity to influence healthcare through engineering solutions, so increases our need to understand the patients, professionals and services whose needs and aspirations we design for.

The primary objective of this course is to enable the biomedical engineering student to engage in the human-centred design of health technology, employing tools and methods grounded in human- computer interaction and design research theory. Working together in teams, students will devise and observe a human-centred design research process with the aim of producing an innovative concept solution to a complex real-world challenge in the practice of healthcare presented by expert stakeholders.

Science Foundation

This course draws upon theory and methods from the fields of human-computer interaction, design thinking, implementation science, health psychology, ubiquitous and pervasive computing, and mobile and wearable computing. The course will additionally focus on the opportunities and challenges of interdisciplinary approaches to problem solving and decision-making in the context of healthcare.

Tools and Methods

Students will learn to select among and employ tools and methods for the research and development of health technologies targeting diverse stakeholders; from qualitative interviewing to concept, empathy and experience mapping, storyboarding and prototyping techniques within the framework of participatory, user-, service- and human-centred design methodologies.

Project Deliverables

The primary deliverable for this course will take the form of a visually-compelling portfolio communicating challenges identified, insights gained, processes followed, methods adopted and concept solutions developed during the project. This portfolio will be developed through interaction with and presented to the project advisor(s) and external stakeholders upon conclusion of the project.

Project Phases

This three-work course will consist of independent project work – entailing need-finding, ideation and concept development phases – supported and informed by lectures on design research tools, theory and methods, weekly interactions with external stakeholders, and regular meetings with the project advisor(s).

Project Logistics

For the period of this three-week course, each project group – comprising two to four members – will devise and engage in a process for the research and design of a novel concept solution to a real-world challenge in the practice of healthcare introduced by expert stakeholders at the start of the project.

Regular feedback on processes, methods and concepts will be provided by the project advisor(s) and obtained through peer discussion and feedback in parallel. Formal assessment of students’ learning will be made upon conclusion of the course on the basis of a final oral presentation of the project portfolio.