Design probes and toolkits for healthcare: Identifying information needs in African communities through service design

Abstract

Design practice as a problem solving strategy explores ways of addressing challenges in organisations, communities, healthcare and many more. The process is usually human-centered, but in certain contexts, it is devoid of user inputs. The process starts with exploring a context and identifying the problem. We propose a service design approach that uses visual strategies of probing to empathise, among others, with users to find ideas that could be used to solve problems. In this study, the authors explore a co-design process developed to gain insights into healthcare, and access information needs of mothers in South Africa and Ghana. During these design processes, probes and toolkits were used to emphatically respond to the contexts and needs of participants. Through this process, health information needs and sources of participants were identified. The authors infer that probes are viable research tools to gain better understanding, when designing with users in African communities.