To Understand & be Understood

Pain is a subjective and complex experience that no one else can feel but yourself. The GP consultation is therefore a particularly demanding context, where diffuse pain meets a system that requires concrete descriptions. Many people find that their GP doesn't truly see or hear them when they try to communicate their pain. This can lead to eroded trust, poorer treatment, and greater health inequalities

The project is grounded in the following brief: 
How can we as designers create a more equitable dialogue when female patients with minority backgrounds communicate pain during GP consultations?

Based on three identified barriers, we have developed three digital tools that integrate into Helsenorge and are used before, during, and after the consultation:

Smertedagboken (The Pain Diary) gives women a low-threshold entry point for logging their pain and gaining an overview of connections and patterns over time.

Veiviseren (The Guide) functions as a framework to ensure that the appointment is spent on what matters most to the woman.

Sjekk-inn (Check-In) gives her the opportunity to reflect and flag any gaps or needs post consultation., and thereby take an active role in the ongoing dialogue with her GP.

Together, the tools shift the power balance in the consultation and make the patient an active participant in the conversation about her own health. By strengthening the conditions for communication, the GP gets a more complete picture of the patient's situation. The consultation becomes more precise, and the chances of an accurate assessment and treatment increase.

From research to design

We approached the project as an iterative service and interaction design process. We combined desktop research with interviews and user involvement to build an understanding of the experiences, needs, and challenges surrounding communication about pain.

We mapped the patient journey to identify where expectations, understandings, and communication between patient and GP diverged. This helped us move from individual experiences to broader patterns and identify the barriers with the greatest potential for design intervention.

From these insights, we generated ideas through a series of ideation exercises and explored different “what if” scenarios. We gradually narrowed these down into concepts, continuously asking how each idea could create value for both the woman and the GP.

We then moved between making, testing, and refining. Early concepts were concretised into prototypes and tested with users, allowing us to challenge our assumptions and adapt the solutions based on feedback. The process continued through several iterations before we selected and developed the final interventions.

Throughout the process, we worked with the tension between designing for a specific group and creating something that could be relevant beyond it. Rather than designing a solution to the healthcare system as a whole, we focused on the moments where design could make a concrete difference in the communication between patient and GP.

Current situation

Purpose

Where to start?

A special thanks to our wonderful supervisors!

Shivani Prakash
E-mail: shivani.prakash@designit.com

Erlend Grimeland
E-mail: Erlend.Grimeland@aho.no