Service Design (MA)
Sally Zhou
Prior to Service Design, Sally worked as a UX designer. She has system thinking and research-based practice while exploring the intersections between, design, strategy and technology and their potential in societal change and transformation. She did service innovation and involves customers in the innovation process. Recent projects have focused on healthcare, banking, happiness, inclusive design and ethic of AI.
Sally Zhou is a service designer who has great enthusiasm in healthcare and wellbeing area, especially for the elderly. Therefore she focused on home-based end of life care for her final project.
In order to find out the key problems and to understand the relationship among user and stakeholders, Sally attended several remote and face-to-face events and ran in-depth interviews with them, such as clinical specialists, academic professionals, Gp, district nurses and domiciliary carers.
Sally used design tools in flexible ways to find out the user’s real needs. She did shadow with users to see how things happen in reality, ran co-creation workshop with users to involve them in the innovation process.
Sally ensured that the service is feasible, viable and desirable by testing and updating the solution with real users and stakeholders. In the end, the feedback from them was overwhelmingly positive.
This project not only helps Sally become a more thoughtful service designer but also brings her thinking about life, death, social culture and family responsibilities. She grew up with the project and this precious experience will also companion her in her life.
Carepanion
Carepanion is a commercially minded charity which aims to enhance wellbeing for every home-based, end of life carer through increasing their mental resilience and improving their decision-making abilities.
Key stakeholders
unpaid support to the elder family who are approaching the end of their life. They wouldn’t identify
themselves as a ‘carer’. They likely just view themselves as a mum, dad, partner, son, or daughter.
From our interview with different stakeholders around end of life people, we found that family carers play an
absolutely essential role in the home-based scenario. They were put on a lot of expectations.
Carer is a full-time job, they have lots of emotional and physical stress, with many carers feeling unsupported.
They want to make as few mistakes as possible, but they lack caring knowledge from the initial stages. They
want to know the experiences of people in the same situation, but they are more concerned about their data
privacy. The government realized carers should be supported throughout, there are so many useful related
care services, but it’s difficult and time-consuming for carers to discover.
In addition, although the experience of taking care of a loved one is tough, it will be a precious memory.
Key outcomes
Caring diaries help carers take better care of themselves and save memories throughout the whole journey.
The Carepanion Network is the best place to find out about related services with contact lists in specific areas. Simpler, clearer, faster.
Community is a safe and anonymous place for users to find peer support from other users going through similar situations as them. Carers can find the solution and feel that they are not alone here.
Insights provide users with both caring knowledge and localised information, it empowers users to choose how to take care of their loved ones.
Business Model
For example, St. Christopher’s hospices could be one of our partners in the care industry. Carepanion develops customized services for them, such as care-plans and training programs. Helping employees improve their ability to adjust their mental health and supporting them to provide better care.
Carepanion as a commercially minded charity also hopes to cooperate with job skill training agencies such as On-Purpose. We act as a placement host, offering selected and skilled volunteers a place to practice and learn.
Value
It’s feasible because: It’s accessible to anyone, anytime. It offers user onboarding tests and personalized
information. Integrating end of life care resources in different areas.
Through build business partnership with CarePanion, Our Partner can build their corporate image,
expand their influence, bring more benefits to their employee and enhance their wellbeing, also able
to innovate based on our shared data.
Carepanion helps carers to build their confidence, gives them sense of community belonging, helps
them to gain more experience, reduce mistake while making decision and better balance their life
through their care journey.
Measurement
For example, Carepanion collect user's physical and mental condition such as Sleep, exercise, and mood to measure their mental resilience and collect the changes of users behavior and psychological feelings through questionnaires, such as "do you have more choice when facing problems?”, to measure their ability of better decision making.