Abstract
Sometimes you can judge the book by the cover. If you think a book on design, written jointly by a physician and a design museum curator, with a cover drawing of a cartoon-like stethoscope reminiscent of Calder and Mondrian, would be a fun read, you would not be disappointed. Ku’s medical perspectives and Lupton’s sensitivities to the history and future of design take the reader on an entertaining journey that is not only fun, with one-liners inserted with surgical precision, but, with an abundance of case studies to illustrate their message, it is also very educational.
Everything about this book seems intentional to alert the reader to a different kind of reading experience. The first thing one notices in turning the pages of the book is how thick the paper is and how glossy the page finish is. The font size changes from page to page. Page formats vary widely, from single-column text to two columns of text, sometimes even on successive pages, section headings highlighted to help the reader easily follow the author’s train of thought, and an abundance of graphics to make page-turning a frequent and delightful occurrence. Images range from cartoon sketches, to carefully crafted technical drawings, to photographs of projects reflecting activities in the nearby text. In what is now a familiar and popular writing style, the authors have created a text broken into bite-sized pieces, each of which is easily read either individually or in bunches, a few at a time.
Health Design Thinking begins with what could best be described as familiar territory: patient-centered design, human-centered design, patient-focused design. They all point to a close alignment between the designer and the individual for whom the design is being developed. However, the authors spend a bit of time developing the concept of “empathy” in design, suggesting that if empathy alone is involved, the risk is the development of a design process and product that reflects an “us and them” distinction between designers and users, a gap which the authors argue can best be bridged by putting both on the same design team.
The table of contents reveals a straightforward, elegantly simple three-part organization to the text. In Section 1, Principles, the authors explain the beliefs that frame their foundational thinking. In Section 2, Methods, readers are given a series of short micro-chapters on research process tools and techniques that can be useful to designers seeking to develop human-centered design solutions. In the final Section 3, Case Studies, the authors offer a number of real-life examples that reinforce the issues covered in the first two sections. All three sections are written to be engaging, and instructive, without being dry, burdensome, or tedious.
For those who enjoy a clever turn of a phrase, this text is relentless in serving up one-liners worth savoring and archiving for future use. The authors suggest that “well-being is the ultimate goal of any human-centered intervention” (p. 14) and that “creativity is not a rare talent” (p. 34). They suggest that “questioning is the act of viewing any problem from a new angle” (p.36), that “visual thinking isn’t just for individuals with excellent eyesight,” and that “drawing is a form of thinking” (p. 44). And what is perhaps my favorite, “research can be fun!” (p.59). The text is rich with such pearls, like valuable cards drawn from a deck, awaiting conversational play at some future, opportune moment.
To those who have worked in the health design community for any period of time, hold up a finger if you have ever had a physician wax poetic about how they once contemplated becoming an architect instead of a physician. An open-minded design professional can come away from such conversations wiser and bolder, benefiting from lessons and insights gleaned by physicians from years of clinical experiences. Much of the thinking behind the book actually comes from work being done at the Health Design Lab, established in 2016, at Thomas Jefferson University where “medical students who select the design track learn to think like designers by applying design methods to real challenges facing doctors.” In this program, rising physicians can actually study design and the ways it can have a beneficial impact on their medical practices, and the book includes many references to this innovative program. One can only imagine how many physicians in the future will be telling health architects about their coursework in health design!
The Case Studies section of the book is a treasure trove of illustrations of principles and methods mentioned earlier in the text. Delivered in rapid-fire, short bursts of text and graphics, woven together in widely varying formats and page compositions, the case studies build a sense of momentum for the reader. Thomas Jefferson University, Rice University, the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Vanderbilt University, and Stanford are a few of the schools providing case studies and stories for the book. Kaiser Permanente, MASS Design Group, DIRTWORKS, PC, and Kieran Timberlake Architects are among the organizations whose work is featured in the text. In short, the authors have established a credible inventory of examples to make their points, examples that would play very well with clients and partners to align design thinking and motivations among team members.
In an overarching sense, Health Design Thinking is about learning to ask the right questions. The IDEO approach to meaningful inquiry that establishes the value of a “how-might-we-question” (HMW) is foundational in much of what the authors have to say. Readers are often brought back to the power of the HMW to refocus thinking and discussion. From the work of Alex Osborn, the power of “brainstorming” is explained using military terms to reference attacking single problems from multiple perspectives, and from the work of Donald Norman, there is a section that explains how to start a meaningful conversation. These perspectives are not trivialized in the text; rather, they are offered to the reader as an encouragement to return to the basics of how to see any given design opportunity through a fresh lens.
It is essential for the medical community to ask patients the right questions in order to get the right information to make the proper diagnosis and set of recommendations. For many in the medical community, that is a learned behavior. The authors suggest that in like manner, the design community must learn to ask the right questions of those for whom a design is being developed if the final project is to be relevant, innovative, and impactful in a positive way. And they’re right. This is an issue worth more than a casual acknowledgment from the health design community; it deserves a passionate, soul-searching introspection, and this text has a number of tools to help guide that experience.
Health Design Thinking is an entertaining and engaging look at the serious business of asking the right questions about design for the health of individuals. And the authors do not limit their message to the design of buildings; instead, their point is broadly aimed at the design process, at any scale, for any end user whose health will be impacted by a product or service. Even the most experienced health designer will finish this book with a renewed sense of commitment to design guided by meaningful inquiry. Who knew that thought-provoking text could be so much fun?