The founding principle of DaSH was to make people’s experience of using their local sexual health service central to its design and implementation.
To understand the issues that a local sexual health service for Gateshead would need to address, the team began a period of extensive research to understand the daily lives of the people the improved service would eventually benefit.
Community research
To develop their proposals for an improved local health service, the Design Options team spoke to around 40 professionals and more than 500 Gateshead people. There was a particular focus on groups who traditionally find it harder to access and use public health services, placing them at higher risk of poor sexual health. They included young people, gay and bisexual men and ethnic minorities.
Through these discussions, the project organisers were able to make sure their final outcomes would match the needs and expectations of their target demographic.
At the discussion sessions, small groups would look at the ideas that the design team had developed so far and offer feedback based on their expectations and preferences of using sexual heath services.
Taking this information, the designers began to look at how practical their ideas were by working alongside the healthcare professionals that would eventually have to implement them.
Identifying issues and developing personas as they outlined and refined their proposals, the DaSH team began developing a number of fictional personas, based on the experiences of people they had spoken to in Gateshead.
This process helped them to consider the proposed sexual health service from various ‘first person’ perspectives, comparing and contrasting aspects of the new service against the needs and wants of each fictional persona.
PCT Team Leader: ‘The team now think differently, they consider all the five elements from a user perspective and are questioning every detail in terms of necessity and impact on user experience. This is entirely down to the understanding of a people-centred design led process they gained through being on the DASH co-design team’
Identifying Issues and Developing Personas
Creating fictional characters that embody the thoughts and experiences of others is particularly useful when dealing with personal or confidential information such as sexual history and lifestyle. They allow the design team to discuss scenarios and situations openly without compromising the individual.
Stories and scenarios such as the ones developed for DaSH help to inspire designers and generate new ideas by giving everyone involved a better understanding of the people who will eventually use their service or product.
Ankur Chaudhary
Ankur is 23 and lives in a ground floor flat in Bensham with his best friend Sharif. He works as a mortgage advisor. He is gay and goes out every weekend and some nights during the week after the gym. He is very careful when it comes to safe sex and rarely takes risks, but to make sure he visits the sexual health clinic every six months to be tested for STIs.
Beckie Manning
Beckie is 15 and lives with her parents in Birtley. She has recently started seeing her best friend Emma’s older brother, Mike. Mike hates using condoms, so they haven’t always used them. Beckie is worried she might be pregnant.
Lauren Connelly
Lauren is 23 and lives in High Spen with her three-year-old son and her parents. She doesn’t have a job. Lauren hasn’t had many nights out since the birth of her son, but she recently went to a party with her best friend. Around midnight she started feeling very drunk. She blacked out and came round at four in the morning on her own in one of the bedrooms. Lauren found she had been partially undressed. She felt terrible, but had no idea what had happened.
Alex Deacon
Alex is 20, single and lives with his mother in Sheriff Hill. He works as an agency construction worker. He often ends up taking a girl home (or being taken home) on a Saturday. He uses condoms most of the time, but not always. Recently a girl he’d slept with a while ago confronted him. She told him she had Chlamydia and that he gave it to her. He’s been trying not to think about it, but it’s been preying on his mind.
Linda Stuart
Linda is 46 and divorced. She has just begun a relationship with Adrian, her first serious relationship since her marriage ended. Adrian insists on using condoms when he and Linda sleep together, which she hates doing. She has suggested they both go for STI testing so that they can stop using condoms – he’s reluctant, but has agreed.