Disruptive, illuminating and generative force for change? Design case studies from healthcare

Recent pre-occupations in design practice and research have extended the understanding of design from one comprising activities which were once purely those of the ‘professional’ (e.g., industrial) designer to the point where design is seen as a ‘distributed social accomplishment’ and where, e.g., ‘stakeholders are co-designers and designers are another kind of stakeholder’. Here, design uses ‘participative’ or ‘co-design’ processes where designers’ roles shift from a stance of designing ‘for’ people to designing ‘with’ people. As such, design tends to be valued for its utilitarianism, i.e. for its potential for reducing suffering, increasing wellbeing, or providing improved scenarios or solutions. In multi-disciplinary research, when designers form part of the team, this utilitarianism may be attractive to other disciplines in helping achieve desired outcomes. Taking a case study approach, the author discusses a series of multi-disciplinary healthcare research projects, where designers were invited for the first time to bring novel approaches and methods to help bear on specific healthcare problems. He questions to what extent design is understood as a disruptive force for change in its own right able to influence, e.g., the dynamics of inter-personal relationships, the way the research itself is designed and conducted in healthcare environments, and how problems are defined and understood. Design can also illuminate data, insights and ideas and, through its rich mix of accessible methods and processes, can create a strong and effective social dynamic between the research teams, stakeholders and clients, allowing everyone to work together in a more fluid and contributory manner, enabling a collective generation of solutions