Experience report on the Design Thinking workshop "Communication platform for severely disabled people"

In a design thinking workshop conducted by Infometis, the needs of people with severe physical and intellectual disabilities regarding digital communication were investigated. From this, proto-personas, scenarios, and a prototype were derived and then discussed with experts.

Helping people with special support needs to achieve greater self-determination

There are adults with intellectual and physical disabilities that severely restrict their lives: They live in residential care and require intensive support because their cognitive development is at the level of a four- to six-year-old child. Every visit to an event or a meeting with a friend at another institution involves a significant logistical effort for caregivers or other support persons. Since these individuals with cognitive and motor impairments often have difficulty expressing themselves and are unable to read or write, communication with them and with each other is challenging.

Digitalization promises new opportunities to make the lives of these individuals (aged 18+) more autonomous, connected, and ultimately more self-determined. But what does that mean? How exactly must a solution to this question be designed to achieve the desired effect? ​​What skills do these individuals possess to use IT devices effectively? What goal should a digitalization project in this area pursue?

These questions are the subject of a HCIDmaster's thesis, which three MAS students from the Rapperswil University of Applied Sciences (HSR) will be working on over the next eight months, with a particular focus on the involvement of these users. As a social commitment, Infometis offered the students and the three participating foundations, rodania, arkadis , and Discherheim, the opportunity to kick off the project with a design thinking workshop. Patrick Steiger, partner and business solutioner at Infometis, moderated this one-day workshop at the arkadis offices in Olten.

How can we support people with special needs
in networking within a safe space?

The three students and one other participant began the workshop with this design challenge . Since none of the four had any experience working with people with multiple disabilities, the first two steps of the design thinking microcycle to be completed that day were crucial:

^{Figure 1: Design Thinking microcycle steps}

Understand – first understand the problem correctly

In the Understand step , one of the participants presented what had already been discussed in the preliminary meeting with the client, the Rodania Foundation, and what the students had already researched. Good preparation for such a workshop takes a lot of pressure and uncertainty out of the process right from the start. Afterwards, the entire workshop team compiled their existing knowledge on the topic in a structured way using cards on the floor. This was sufficient to identify what they didn't yet know (for sure) and thus to compile relevant questions for the upcoming interview.

Observe using interviews

Observe: Three interviews were planned for this workshop. Just under 20 minutes were allotted for preparation, during which participants were to compile the interview questions on flip charts, based on the assumptions and gaps identified during the Understand phase, and arrange them in a logical order. A mere 90 minutes after the workshop began, the first facilitator contacted the facilitator via Skype for the interview. A participant had been selected as the interviewer and questioned the facilitator about the target group's abilities, current technical aids, problems and challenges, and much more.

^{Figure 2: The Observe phase: Prepare the questionnaire, conduct three interviews, and provide feedback to the interviewer in between, improving the interview guide.}

Reflection: an important tool

After an intensive half-hour of questioning, there was time for reflection: feedback to the interviewer as well as adjustments to the interview guide. This laid the foundation for conducting the second and later the third interview with different participants, improving with each iteration.

It was fascinating to witness how empathetic and focused on the well-being of those being cared for the caregivers were perceived. Clearly, increasing the self-determination of the people they support is a central concern for the caregivers. The problem isn't—as one might assume—optimizing processes and simplifying logistics per se, but rather how individuals with significant limitations independently utilize the benefits of digital devices. The question, therefore, is how they can become more autonomous and, for example, decide for themselves which events they want to participate in and with whom they want to connect virtually, and when. It's also crucial that they can maintain these relationships with the same level of privacy that we take for granted.

Point of View

From the wealth of material, two teams of two each developed a proto-persona. This proved invaluable in developing empathy for the users and realizing that these individuals possess character traits, needs, and goals that are not necessarily distinct from those of their peers. The final step in this phase was to agree on a specific question. From two versions—one for each proto-persona—the participants prioritized the following problem statement:

^{Figure 3: Results of the Point of View step}

The problem statement seems trivial at first glance. However, when we consider that these are people who have difficulty expressing themselves, sometimes using sign language or a self-developed spoken language, and who have so far been 100% dependent on the support of caregivers or other support persons if they want to maintain social contacts, then it becomes clear that this is a very relevant issue. This was also confirmed by the client and one of the caregivers interviewed, who came to the workshop premises in the evening for the feedback session.

Finding ideas and building prototypes

The facilitator's experience was confirmed once again: finding the right, relevant problem takes up two-thirds of the workshop time. When it comes to creativity, there's a choice—as with all steps in a workshop—between individual and collaborative creativity techniques. Here's what creativity looks like using anindividualbrainwriting method:

^{Figure 4: Ideate using the 6-3-5 method}

The generated ideas were compiled, discussed and prioritized, and then developed in two iterations into a scenario and several paper prototypes:

^{Figure 5: Discussion of the scenario and the second iteration of the GUI prototype.}

Test, test, test

At the end of the Design Thinking workshop, the client and one of the interviewed supervisors joined the feedback session. The team enthusiastically presented all their work results and were then eager to hear how they were received by those indirectly affected.

Surprised by the quantity and quality of the flip charts and prototypes, the two experts attested to the workshop participants' great empathy: The proto-personas represented the targeted users very accurately.

Constructive feedback was given on the GUI designs:

• For example, scrolling on a tablet is hardly possible for many people with cognitive and motor impairments.
• Reading and understanding text is also difficult → pictograms, pictures and sound are better suited.

^{Figure 6: Feedback session with two stakeholders}

Conclusion on this intensive workshop day

We started with an open mind and ended with a concrete result that greatly pleased the stakeholders and also brought deep satisfaction to the participants. The project team learned a tremendous amount about the future users and the challenges they will face in their future work.

The functionality isn't the critical factor (people with special support needs have similar or identical social needs to everyone else), but rather the design of the user interface and interaction will be the biggest challenge. For example, the prototypes developed in the workshop made it clear that user tests wouldn't work with such low-fidelity wireframes and sketches. Instead, user-specific, high-fidelity prototypes must be created so that the right interaction language can be developed through several iterations.

All participants and the facilitator were pleased to have uncovered some very relevant problems in this Design Thinking workshop and to have developed a first, concrete solution for the most important scenario (motivating friends to attend an event). This clearly demonstrated to everyone where the key to design lies.

June 29, 2020 / Patrick Steiger

Our Academy offer on this topic

• Public Design Thinking Workshop
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