Designing for wellbeing
Designing for wellbeing
Designing for wellbeing
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of chlamydia. The service presents the facts about chlamydia, gives in<strong>for</strong>mation<br />
about its treatment and allows those tested positive to in<strong>for</strong>m<br />
<strong>for</strong>mer partners who may be at risk. The campaign elements get student<br />
organisations on board in order to bring the topic into discussion among<br />
students in a fun way. The campaign is brought to parties, where alcohol<br />
is usually consumed and after which students face the highest risk of<br />
infection, and badges <strong>for</strong> student overalls and ice cream bars with a hidden<br />
chlamydia awareness message are distributed. The online service offers<br />
easily digestible in<strong>for</strong>mation about chlamydia prevention and a quiz-<strong>for</strong>mat<br />
risk assessment. The service makes it possible <strong>for</strong> students to order<br />
home sampling kits online and locate the nearest healthcare centre. It<br />
also enables anonymous in<strong>for</strong>ming of ex-partners about their possible<br />
infection after a student has been diagnosed with chlamydia.<br />
In this project the designer-user social distance was rather immediate<br />
as, unlike in the other two projects, both the design team and the user<br />
group were comprised of students. This enabled the design team to come<br />
up with solutions that are rooted in the social reality of their users. The<br />
student health unit’s system-led thinking was perhaps most evident in<br />
their existing questionnaire <strong>for</strong> screening the health of new polytechnic<br />
students. A student who answered “yes” to the question “have you engaged<br />
in a risky sexual activity?” would be invited <strong>for</strong> a check-up, while the real<br />
problem is that those with the most risky behaviour would not consider<br />
their behaviour risky and would answer “no”. Free from IT infrastructure<br />
constraints and epidemiologic thinking, the designers were able to find a<br />
new approach that the student healthcare unit would probably not have<br />
been able to ask <strong>for</strong>. This reduced the system-user distance. The final concept<br />
went further than just providing in<strong>for</strong>mation. It made it easy to get<br />
tested and provided solutions <strong>for</strong> the doctors’ requirement <strong>for</strong> chlamydia<br />
patients to in<strong>for</strong>m their potentially infected ex-partners.<br />
Looking at the healthcare unit’s online sexual health questionnaire, one<br />
could see the potential alienation of healthcare personnel and citizens as<br />
139 · Reducing social distance through co-design