The Virtual
Hospital Ward
At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, physical hospital rounds for medical students became unfeasible. I designed a digital solution to give the students an alternative experience.
The first iteration resulted in a series of digital sketches.
The finished result was a prototype made in Adobe XD.
Project
Setup
The project was initiated by the people responsible for the course LÄG053 at University of Gothenburg who needed a more designated solution to replace the physical hospital rounds that were not possible for the students to take part in during the pandemic.
It was made during a 7,5 hp course Individual Project in Interaction Design at Chalmers University of Technology. I created the design myself, in close collaboration with the doctors who were responsible for the course.
The design process was based on ISO 9241-210:2019, Human-centred design for interactive systems.
Design Methodology
As a basis for the process, I used a process based on Swedish Standard ISO 9241-210:2019, Human-centred design for interactive systems. This is an iterative process with focus on the users and their needs.
After the initial planning of the design process the iterative cycle began, going through the phases Understanding and specifying the context of use, Specifying the user requirements, Producing design solutions and Evaluating the design. After the evaluation stage, the next iteration would start where appropriate.
Understanding
the Context of Use
I had meetings with the teachers and doctors responsible for the course, to try to understand what they really wanted. I wanted to get a clear image of how the physical rounds used to work before the pandemic and visited the hospital where the rounds were usually held together with the amanuenses responsible for the education. I looked at the layout of the hospital, and at the computer programs that were used during the rounds.
The amanuenses also provided me with parts of the first digital solution that consisted of PowerPoint presentations. I looked at the course evaluations made by students after the last term, which gave insight into how the previous online solution had been perceived.
As a preliminary solution to replace the physical hospital rounds for the medical students, a PowerPoint presentation had been used. I used this as a starting point for my design.
Iterative
Work
After starting to get a grasp of what the project should deliver, I made some quick sketches to get a first visual of how the solution could look. For evaluation of the first iteration, I showed the sketches to the amanuenses and explained how I intended the program to work. They gave me some input on how they believed that the program could work. Based on the input given, I made adjustments during the next iteration.
Results
The prototype consists of a number of views that describe how the web application could look. The design was launched in accordance with the design suggestions made.