... Elizabeth B.-N.Sanders The first article in the first issue of a new journal is an opportu-ni... more ... Elizabeth B.-N.Sanders The first article in the first issue of a new journal is an opportu-nity to start conversations and bring together people who are engaged in doing and thinking about design re-search. ... Cover Article: 1 Design Research in 2006 Elizabeth B.–N. Sanders ...
Open Research is a publicly accessible, curated repository for the preservation and dissemination... more Open Research is a publicly accessible, curated repository for the preservation and dissemination of scholarly and creative output of the OCAD University community. Material in Open Research is open access and made available via the consent of the author and/or rights holder on a non-exclusive basis.
In recent years, various methods and techniques have emerged for mapping the contexts of people's... more In recent years, various methods and techniques have emerged for mapping the contexts of people's interaction with products. Designers and researchers use these techniques to gain deeper insight into the needs and dreams of prospective users of new products. As most of these techniques are still under development, there is a lack of practical knowledge about how such studies can be conducted. In this paper we share our insights, based on several projects from research and many years of industrial practice, of conducting user studies with generative techniques. The appendix contains a single case illustrating the application of these techniques in detail.
This exploratory paper aims to discuss how community is fostered in semi-public restrooms on a co... more This exploratory paper aims to discuss how community is fostered in semi-public restrooms on a college campus. While previous research has been undertaken in similar semi-private environments, this paper differs by simultaneously offering the researchers’ reflective insights in tandem with participants’ input on the research question. We begin by unpacking the challenges around Participatory Design (PD) activities that are undertaken in sensitive and private interior environments. Gathering perceptions of these sensitive spaces required methods that allowed for both anonymity and a communal approach through the use of provocative and evocative probes such as comment boxes and graffiti wall posters. This paper not only catalogues the findings of this research but also documents the difficulties in utilizing a participant-led approach, gaining access to sites and participants, and countering our own biases throughout the study’s construction. Through researcher accounts and participat...
Routledge International Handbook of Participatory Design
ABSTRACT Participatory design is not one approach but a proliferating family of design practices ... more ABSTRACT Participatory design is not one approach but a proliferating family of design practices that hosts many design agendas and comes with a varied set of toolboxes. In this chapter we will give examples of toolboxes with the ambition to show that there is a richness of tools and techniques available that may be combined, adapted and extended to form the basis for yet new PD practices. It is shown how the making of things, the telling of stories and the enactment of possible futures together provide the basis for forming a temporary community in which the new can be envisioned. The introduction frames tools and techniques within participatory design and describes participatory design as various practices of participation. The following sections give examples of how designers and non-designers participate in PD practices through activities focusing on telling, making and enacting. The final section reflects on present and future challenges. We present a wide selection of tools and techniques for PD, describing how they ´support participants in making, telling and enacting aspects of future design. The aim is to stimulate further proliferation of formats and procedures that may bring PD to new design challenges and to new designer/user communities. Our claim is not that tools and techniques have to be applied rigorously. Instead we suggest that sensitivity to the coherence of making, telling and enacting provides sufficient grounding for designers (and non-designers) to make the tools and techniques relevant for whatever participatory action they are involved in. This includes being aware of what is accomplished as particular tools and techniques become part of specific participatory design practices. Finding out how these in combination can create formats and procedures that can create engagement, a common image of the vision or PD development task, and last but not least, create ownership for the results
An increase in providing hospital bedside imaging examinations could be contributing to the risk ... more An increase in providing hospital bedside imaging examinations could be contributing to the risk of musculoskeletal injuries among imaging professionals. Given the increasing demand for portable bedside imaging, a research project was conducted in three phases: (1) interviews and focus group sessions, (2) full-scale mock-up sessions where occupational stakeholders created prototype rooms, and (3) evaluation sessions of inpatient room prototypes by all stakeholders. The study data from diagnostic medical sonographers (DMS), cardiac sonographers (CS), vascular technologists (VT), and radiographers (RTs) were retrospectively pulled from the overall research to address the following research question: What hospital room designs and components facilitate or hinder medical imaging professionals in providing bedside imaging? Data analyses utilize constant comparative analysis, quantitative counts, and discourse analysis across all three phases of the project. The results highlight the impo...
HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal
Objectives: This research investigated medical/surgical (Med/Surg) patient room design to accommo... more Objectives: This research investigated medical/surgical (Med/Surg) patient room design to accommodate the needs of hospital staff, while at the same time accommodating the needs of patients and their visitors. Background: Designing hospital patient rooms that provide a comfortable healing experience for patients, while at the same time meeting the needs of the hospital staff, is a challenging process. Prior research has shown that many hospital patient room designs adversely affect the ability of hospital staff to perform their tasks effectively, efficiently, and safely. Method: Twenty-seven design sessions were conducted in which 104 participants, representing 24 different occupations, worked in small mixed occupational groups to design an ideal single patient Med/Surg patient room to fit their collective needs using a full-scale mock-up. During analysis, the investigators reduced the resulting 27 room designs to 5 hybrid designs that were sequentially reviewed by patients and visi...
Proceedings of the International Symposium of Human Factors and Ergonomics in Healthcare. International Symposium of Human Factors and Ergonomics in Healthcare, 2018
Critical Decision Method (CDM), a popular cognitive task analysis (CTA) method, is an in-depth re... more Critical Decision Method (CDM), a popular cognitive task analysis (CTA) method, is an in-depth retrospective interview that uses a historical non-routine incident to identify experts' decision-making factors in complex socio-technical settings with high consequences for failure. However, it is challenging to use CDM to make comparisons, including those between experts and trainees. We describe an alternative CTA method used to study physicians' decision making for ordering diagnostic imaging. After being primed with 11 simulated patient scenarios, nine attending and 11 resident physicians were asked to map out and present their decision-making process with a bullseye participatory design toolkit. Interviews were analyzed qualitatively, revealing four common decision factors: diagnostic efficacy, patient safety, organizational constraints, and patient comfort. The bullseye maps were used to quantitatively measure priority differences between these decision factors. Attending ...
To identify family members' and visitors' needs with relation to the design of a hospital... more To identify family members' and visitors' needs with relation to the design of a hospital room. There is a trend toward incorporating family zones in hospital patient rooms in order to improve patient satisfaction and encourage family caregivers to stay longer and overnight. A mixed-method study was employed. Interviews of patients and family caregivers were conducted to understand opportunities to improve hospital room designs based on recent experiences. Features intended to support short-term and overnight visitors were embedded in five full-scale simulated room design concepts. Small groups of family caregivers and patients toured two room design concepts and reacted real time to room features. A grounded theory approach was employed to identify emerging themes. A theoretical design framework is developed for the needs of family members and visitors for a range of time periods. This framework is founded upon desires to help make the patient feel more comfortable. There a...
Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting
Increasing interest in acuity-adaptable patient rooms, performing more services in patient rooms,... more Increasing interest in acuity-adaptable patient rooms, performing more services in patient rooms, and the increasing size of the population all have implications for the patient room as a workspace, including the number of people working in the room, types of tasks performed, and amount and layout of the space in which tasks are performed. This presentation describes an analysis of the opinions of professionals who typically control the design of hospital patient rooms, concerning five med/surg patient room designs developed through a participatory process involving mixed groups of hospital staff members, all of whom work in patient rooms. Ratings and comments provided by the design professionals identified clear preferences for one of the designs, as well as rooms and design elements for which there were more mixed or negative opinions. It is important for architects and designers to understand how room size, layout, and organization of features can be used to facilitate work for the full spectrum of hospital staff members who work in patient rooms. Such facilitation can reduce physical strain and improve efficiency and patient care.
HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal
Objectives: To identify patient needs and expectations that can be utilized to inform the design ... more Objectives: To identify patient needs and expectations that can be utilized to inform the design or renovation of medical–surgical patient rooms in a hospital. Background: There is an increased interest in supportive room design to increase patient satisfaction and improve the healing process. Methods: Patients’ and family caregivers’ reactions were elicited to intentional room elements embedded in a set of five full-scale simulated room prototypes. Small groups of patients and caregivers toured two of the five rooms and provided verbal and written evaluations of room features. A grounded theory approach was employed to generate a codebook, identify the frequency of codes, and to group codes and memos into emerging themes. Insights from emergent themes were compared with findings from written surveys on the importance of various room design elements completed at the beginning of each session. Results: A theoretical design framework was generated, showing patients expect a hospital r...
Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting
Microsoft was interested in measuring the “fun” value of a new input device, the Microsoft® EasyB... more Microsoft was interested in measuring the “fun” value of a new input device, the Microsoft® EasyBall™ mouse (designed specifically for two to six year olds), relative to three other input devices available in the marketplace. An evaluation was conducted as a means of ensuring that the ergonomic considerations incorporated into the design of a new child's pointing device addressed the emotional needs, as well as the physical and cognitive needs, of the intended users. A research and test methodology was established to look at this issue from multiple simultaneous perspectives, using both behavioral and verbal measures. Forty four children (half boys and half girls, mixed across the age levels) and their parents were included in the study. The children varied in their level of expertise with computer and/or video games. The same basic procedure was used for all the children, with adaptations made to accommodate the attention spans and skill levels of the youngest. The children ind...
Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting
Page 1. PROCEEDINGS of the HUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS SOCIETY 39th ANNUAL MEETING-1995 3 79 PRE... more Page 1. PROCEEDINGS of the HUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS SOCIETY 39th ANNUAL MEETING-1995 3 79 PREPARING FOR THE HUMAN FACTORS/ ERGONOMICS JOB MARKET Ronald G. Shapiro (Chair), IBM ...
... use/experience value and monetary value may follow, it is often not visible at this stage in ... more ... use/experience value and monetary value may follow, it is often not visible at this stage in terms of a business value proposition. ... matches a designer to a small community with the goal of designing and producing products that create value beyond the ... Implications for the Future. ...
In this article we present a field study where participatory design tools and techniques were use... more In this article we present a field study where participatory design tools and techniques were used in Cambodia to develop ideas for a device that enables children who use prosthetic legs to walk in mud. The study shows that it can be rewarding to do participatory design projects with marginalized children and prosthetists in developing countries. However, for such projects to be successful, designers and organizations in charge of product development must understand that they will be working under different circumstances than when doing participatory design in developed countries. We identify and describe examples of differentiating circumstances across four categories: human; social, cultural and religious; financial and timeframe; and organizational. The field research illustrates that an important advantage of using participatory design with marginalized people in developing countries is the opportunity to develop empowering outcomes of two types: products that meet the users' needs as well as psychological empowerment of the participants. We propose a pyramid model of empowering outcomes that is based on Zimmerman's (1995) model of psychological empowerment. Based on integrating this notion of psychological empowerment, we present an alternative framework for deploying participatory design in developing countries as it has served us in the Cambodia case.
... Elizabeth B.-N.Sanders The first article in the first issue of a new journal is an opportu-ni... more ... Elizabeth B.-N.Sanders The first article in the first issue of a new journal is an opportu-nity to start conversations and bring together people who are engaged in doing and thinking about design re-search. ... Cover Article: 1 Design Research in 2006 Elizabeth B.–N. Sanders ...
Open Research is a publicly accessible, curated repository for the preservation and dissemination... more Open Research is a publicly accessible, curated repository for the preservation and dissemination of scholarly and creative output of the OCAD University community. Material in Open Research is open access and made available via the consent of the author and/or rights holder on a non-exclusive basis.
In recent years, various methods and techniques have emerged for mapping the contexts of people's... more In recent years, various methods and techniques have emerged for mapping the contexts of people's interaction with products. Designers and researchers use these techniques to gain deeper insight into the needs and dreams of prospective users of new products. As most of these techniques are still under development, there is a lack of practical knowledge about how such studies can be conducted. In this paper we share our insights, based on several projects from research and many years of industrial practice, of conducting user studies with generative techniques. The appendix contains a single case illustrating the application of these techniques in detail.
This exploratory paper aims to discuss how community is fostered in semi-public restrooms on a co... more This exploratory paper aims to discuss how community is fostered in semi-public restrooms on a college campus. While previous research has been undertaken in similar semi-private environments, this paper differs by simultaneously offering the researchers’ reflective insights in tandem with participants’ input on the research question. We begin by unpacking the challenges around Participatory Design (PD) activities that are undertaken in sensitive and private interior environments. Gathering perceptions of these sensitive spaces required methods that allowed for both anonymity and a communal approach through the use of provocative and evocative probes such as comment boxes and graffiti wall posters. This paper not only catalogues the findings of this research but also documents the difficulties in utilizing a participant-led approach, gaining access to sites and participants, and countering our own biases throughout the study’s construction. Through researcher accounts and participat...
Routledge International Handbook of Participatory Design
ABSTRACT Participatory design is not one approach but a proliferating family of design practices ... more ABSTRACT Participatory design is not one approach but a proliferating family of design practices that hosts many design agendas and comes with a varied set of toolboxes. In this chapter we will give examples of toolboxes with the ambition to show that there is a richness of tools and techniques available that may be combined, adapted and extended to form the basis for yet new PD practices. It is shown how the making of things, the telling of stories and the enactment of possible futures together provide the basis for forming a temporary community in which the new can be envisioned. The introduction frames tools and techniques within participatory design and describes participatory design as various practices of participation. The following sections give examples of how designers and non-designers participate in PD practices through activities focusing on telling, making and enacting. The final section reflects on present and future challenges. We present a wide selection of tools and techniques for PD, describing how they ´support participants in making, telling and enacting aspects of future design. The aim is to stimulate further proliferation of formats and procedures that may bring PD to new design challenges and to new designer/user communities. Our claim is not that tools and techniques have to be applied rigorously. Instead we suggest that sensitivity to the coherence of making, telling and enacting provides sufficient grounding for designers (and non-designers) to make the tools and techniques relevant for whatever participatory action they are involved in. This includes being aware of what is accomplished as particular tools and techniques become part of specific participatory design practices. Finding out how these in combination can create formats and procedures that can create engagement, a common image of the vision or PD development task, and last but not least, create ownership for the results
An increase in providing hospital bedside imaging examinations could be contributing to the risk ... more An increase in providing hospital bedside imaging examinations could be contributing to the risk of musculoskeletal injuries among imaging professionals. Given the increasing demand for portable bedside imaging, a research project was conducted in three phases: (1) interviews and focus group sessions, (2) full-scale mock-up sessions where occupational stakeholders created prototype rooms, and (3) evaluation sessions of inpatient room prototypes by all stakeholders. The study data from diagnostic medical sonographers (DMS), cardiac sonographers (CS), vascular technologists (VT), and radiographers (RTs) were retrospectively pulled from the overall research to address the following research question: What hospital room designs and components facilitate or hinder medical imaging professionals in providing bedside imaging? Data analyses utilize constant comparative analysis, quantitative counts, and discourse analysis across all three phases of the project. The results highlight the impo...
HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal
Objectives: This research investigated medical/surgical (Med/Surg) patient room design to accommo... more Objectives: This research investigated medical/surgical (Med/Surg) patient room design to accommodate the needs of hospital staff, while at the same time accommodating the needs of patients and their visitors. Background: Designing hospital patient rooms that provide a comfortable healing experience for patients, while at the same time meeting the needs of the hospital staff, is a challenging process. Prior research has shown that many hospital patient room designs adversely affect the ability of hospital staff to perform their tasks effectively, efficiently, and safely. Method: Twenty-seven design sessions were conducted in which 104 participants, representing 24 different occupations, worked in small mixed occupational groups to design an ideal single patient Med/Surg patient room to fit their collective needs using a full-scale mock-up. During analysis, the investigators reduced the resulting 27 room designs to 5 hybrid designs that were sequentially reviewed by patients and visi...
Proceedings of the International Symposium of Human Factors and Ergonomics in Healthcare. International Symposium of Human Factors and Ergonomics in Healthcare, 2018
Critical Decision Method (CDM), a popular cognitive task analysis (CTA) method, is an in-depth re... more Critical Decision Method (CDM), a popular cognitive task analysis (CTA) method, is an in-depth retrospective interview that uses a historical non-routine incident to identify experts' decision-making factors in complex socio-technical settings with high consequences for failure. However, it is challenging to use CDM to make comparisons, including those between experts and trainees. We describe an alternative CTA method used to study physicians' decision making for ordering diagnostic imaging. After being primed with 11 simulated patient scenarios, nine attending and 11 resident physicians were asked to map out and present their decision-making process with a bullseye participatory design toolkit. Interviews were analyzed qualitatively, revealing four common decision factors: diagnostic efficacy, patient safety, organizational constraints, and patient comfort. The bullseye maps were used to quantitatively measure priority differences between these decision factors. Attending ...
To identify family members' and visitors' needs with relation to the design of a hospital... more To identify family members' and visitors' needs with relation to the design of a hospital room. There is a trend toward incorporating family zones in hospital patient rooms in order to improve patient satisfaction and encourage family caregivers to stay longer and overnight. A mixed-method study was employed. Interviews of patients and family caregivers were conducted to understand opportunities to improve hospital room designs based on recent experiences. Features intended to support short-term and overnight visitors were embedded in five full-scale simulated room design concepts. Small groups of family caregivers and patients toured two room design concepts and reacted real time to room features. A grounded theory approach was employed to identify emerging themes. A theoretical design framework is developed for the needs of family members and visitors for a range of time periods. This framework is founded upon desires to help make the patient feel more comfortable. There a...
Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting
Increasing interest in acuity-adaptable patient rooms, performing more services in patient rooms,... more Increasing interest in acuity-adaptable patient rooms, performing more services in patient rooms, and the increasing size of the population all have implications for the patient room as a workspace, including the number of people working in the room, types of tasks performed, and amount and layout of the space in which tasks are performed. This presentation describes an analysis of the opinions of professionals who typically control the design of hospital patient rooms, concerning five med/surg patient room designs developed through a participatory process involving mixed groups of hospital staff members, all of whom work in patient rooms. Ratings and comments provided by the design professionals identified clear preferences for one of the designs, as well as rooms and design elements for which there were more mixed or negative opinions. It is important for architects and designers to understand how room size, layout, and organization of features can be used to facilitate work for the full spectrum of hospital staff members who work in patient rooms. Such facilitation can reduce physical strain and improve efficiency and patient care.
HERD: Health Environments Research & Design Journal
Objectives: To identify patient needs and expectations that can be utilized to inform the design ... more Objectives: To identify patient needs and expectations that can be utilized to inform the design or renovation of medical–surgical patient rooms in a hospital. Background: There is an increased interest in supportive room design to increase patient satisfaction and improve the healing process. Methods: Patients’ and family caregivers’ reactions were elicited to intentional room elements embedded in a set of five full-scale simulated room prototypes. Small groups of patients and caregivers toured two of the five rooms and provided verbal and written evaluations of room features. A grounded theory approach was employed to generate a codebook, identify the frequency of codes, and to group codes and memos into emerging themes. Insights from emergent themes were compared with findings from written surveys on the importance of various room design elements completed at the beginning of each session. Results: A theoretical design framework was generated, showing patients expect a hospital r...
Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting
Microsoft was interested in measuring the “fun” value of a new input device, the Microsoft® EasyB... more Microsoft was interested in measuring the “fun” value of a new input device, the Microsoft® EasyBall™ mouse (designed specifically for two to six year olds), relative to three other input devices available in the marketplace. An evaluation was conducted as a means of ensuring that the ergonomic considerations incorporated into the design of a new child's pointing device addressed the emotional needs, as well as the physical and cognitive needs, of the intended users. A research and test methodology was established to look at this issue from multiple simultaneous perspectives, using both behavioral and verbal measures. Forty four children (half boys and half girls, mixed across the age levels) and their parents were included in the study. The children varied in their level of expertise with computer and/or video games. The same basic procedure was used for all the children, with adaptations made to accommodate the attention spans and skill levels of the youngest. The children ind...
Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting
Page 1. PROCEEDINGS of the HUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS SOCIETY 39th ANNUAL MEETING-1995 3 79 PRE... more Page 1. PROCEEDINGS of the HUMAN FACTORS AND ERGONOMICS SOCIETY 39th ANNUAL MEETING-1995 3 79 PREPARING FOR THE HUMAN FACTORS/ ERGONOMICS JOB MARKET Ronald G. Shapiro (Chair), IBM ...
... use/experience value and monetary value may follow, it is often not visible at this stage in ... more ... use/experience value and monetary value may follow, it is often not visible at this stage in terms of a business value proposition. ... matches a designer to a small community with the goal of designing and producing products that create value beyond the ... Implications for the Future. ...
In this article we present a field study where participatory design tools and techniques were use... more In this article we present a field study where participatory design tools and techniques were used in Cambodia to develop ideas for a device that enables children who use prosthetic legs to walk in mud. The study shows that it can be rewarding to do participatory design projects with marginalized children and prosthetists in developing countries. However, for such projects to be successful, designers and organizations in charge of product development must understand that they will be working under different circumstances than when doing participatory design in developed countries. We identify and describe examples of differentiating circumstances across four categories: human; social, cultural and religious; financial and timeframe; and organizational. The field research illustrates that an important advantage of using participatory design with marginalized people in developing countries is the opportunity to develop empowering outcomes of two types: products that meet the users' needs as well as psychological empowerment of the participants. We propose a pyramid model of empowering outcomes that is based on Zimmerman's (1995) model of psychological empowerment. Based on integrating this notion of psychological empowerment, we present an alternative framework for deploying participatory design in developing countries as it has served us in the Cambodia case.
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Papers by Liz Sanders