Human-Centred Design Workshops for Digital Health Companies

The Health Design Lab is a research and design centre at Emily Carr University. Within the lab, Faculty and students work collaboratively on projects with industry and community partners to address complex challenges in health and healthcare through a human-centered design approach that places an emphasis on participatory design research and the involvement of patients, care providers and healthcare staff throughout the design process.

The Health Design Lab works with a range of partners including Health Authorities, hospitals, public organizations, non-profits, private business and local start-ups. Through recent partnerships with BC Health Authorities we have designed and implemented interactive hand sanitizers, improved residential care facilities, conceptualized mobile apps, and boosted patient engagement. Our work has also been supported by local start-up companies such as Agartee Technology Inc. and Simpli Innovations Inc.

Projects often result in the conceptualization and design of tangible products such as communication materials, websites, applications, wearables or medical products. Other projects focus on the improvement of services and experiences through human-centered participatory research methods. In these cases our projects begin with problem-finding and sense-making through ethnographic research and co-creation workshops to engage users or participants in the design process and gain insights into their needs. These projects allow our partners to design more patient and user-centered products and services by surfacing a better understanding of the users’ needs and providing recommendations for how to meet these.