FACILITATING DESIGN STUDENTS TO APPLY USER CENTERED RESEARCH METHODS WHEN DESIGNING FOR HEALTHCARE ENVIRONMENTS

Creating respectful and sensitive engagements in design students is essential for conducting research in complex healthcare and social environments. These skills help students understand the diverse experiences of different stakeholders, ensuring respectful and relevant interactions and design solutions. This paper presents the design and development of a new approach to teaching user-centred research methods for an MSC programme in design for health care. The approach focuses on the development of building block projects that equip students with observation and qualitative research skills, ensuring sensitivity and empathy before engaging in real-world projects. Three projects are described. The first two building block projects took place within the university: the first involved observing the First Time User Experience of a product with users within the student’s network, the second involved interviewing paramedic students in role-playing scenarios and the third project, external to the university involved an immersive real-world experience, where students collaborated with various stakeholders—patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals. The students showed significant growth post focus group, in qualitative research skills, improving their ability to navigate complex human contexts and translate findings into actionable design insights. These findings emphasise the importance of developing these skills in an educational setting before involving students in real-world healthcare contexts.