Now is an exciting time to be a designer in healthcare. The industry watched the boom in the design of consumer and technical products, both physical and virtual, and a decade or so later has finally woken up to the power of design to improve many aspects of healthcare and wellness. For instance, wicked problems like patients better self-managing their chronic diseases are better tackled with products that embrace many disciplines unified by design.
Behavioural psychology, digital health, technical innovation (AI, AR), and service design laid on top of medical, pharmaceutical, and scientific evidence-based approaches, are more likely to significantly impact outcomes and quality of life. The skills nurtured in an arts-based design environment tend to look more holistically for solutions that also include the less technical aspects of what will make a product or service actually work in the real world.
Solutions often have to deal with such complex trade-offs that designers who learn to empathise with users, patients, family members and healthcare professionals will be better able to be the midwives between the technical and human aspects to engage and delight their users and stakeholders. These students’ work demonstrates many different ways design can be an amplifier for better health and wellness around the globe.

Bill Evans