Designing for wellbeing

Described above is one of the six presentations given by the design students
during the project “Design for wellbeing in psychiatric care”. By
deciding to perform a story, this group clearly deviated from the other
presentations. And although the presentation directed our attention to
the suggested solution, “Mi”, we cannot isolate the solution from the story
and the compelling manner in which the story was told (page 74). This is
just one example that illustrates that, in addition to the proposed solution,
both the story and its telling form significant elements that are integral to
its design. In examining the different scenarios presented in this project,
we are provided with the opportunity to exemplify the role of stories in
designing a scenario within the context of psychiatric care.
Psychiatric care as an inspiration for design
For our design students, working with psychiatric care was challenging
and not very straightforward. For an eight-week project, the psychiatric
care discipline may have seemed very large, and the services it provides
complex. The issues that such organisations face are seldom reducible to
a single department, group or person. Instead, issues are often found in
and around the organisation at large, and the distinct ways in which the
services are organised. The challenges that psychiatric care poses become
even bigger when we consider that the complexity of its organisation is
easily matched by the complexity and varying needs of those who are
dependent on its services. With an organisation this large and a service this
complex, it was challenging for our design students to envision a desired
change by means of a single artefact or, for example, a cosmetic change
in its premises. These may simply not do the trick to make a convincing
wider change in regards to wellbeing in psychiatric care.
The design students had to challenge some of the traditional views of
design as a practice of creating concrete material artefacts or solutions
that are immediately implementable. Some even questioned what role
they could possibly play in such an environment and why designers were
73 · Designing wellbeing through storytelling