The Process
Prior to the COVID-19 global pandemic, our team set out to explore design to improve life with a focus on the end of life and identifying design opportunities embedded in life planning and our own mortality. Here’s our design process over the course of 5 months.
Preliminary Research
Exploratory Research
Generative Research
Ideation
Evaluative Research
Design Development
PRELIMINARY RESEARCH
We explored the Design x Mortality landscape and identified a gap in understanding how the living prepare for mortality.
We started by reviewing relevant publications in human-computer interaction to understand the previous exploration of the topic and build on existing knowledge.
We learned how the research for Design x Thanatology (the study of death) looks into materiality, social identities, temporality, and methodologies. We resonated with the value in understanding how people prepare for mortality and designing supportive tech. We wanted to focus on the living instead of the dying, since life is uncertain.
EXPLORATORY RESEARCH
We researched how people regard mortality today and found that many neglect preparing for uncertainty and postpone planning indefinitely.
Therefore, we defined our mission for the project to motivate and mobilize people to prepare for the unexpected.
We learned that life planning is oftentimes only brought into focus when an individual survives or sees a loved one survive a life-threatening event. Those that don’t plan for their future have half-formulated ideas about what they want as legacy wishes, however, most of them do not formalize it or communicate their intentions to those who matter.
Therefore many people are unaware of how to prepare for the long term and are not ready to navigate the complexity of legal and medical systems.
Expert Interviews
We met with 6 professionals in the following fields and learned from their perspectives on the collective human experience of approaching death and dealing with the passing of a loved one.
Stakeholder Interviews
We spoke with 15 individuals in their 20s-80s, each with unique experiences and perspectives. We carefully prepared to make them feel comfortable speaking with us about this topic.
Group Conversations
We also hosted and observed 3 groups (in different social contexts) having conversations on the topic to see what death means for individuals and their social relationships.
Key Insights
#1 Life planning is oftentimes only brought into focus when an individual survives or sees a loved one survive a life-threatening event, or when feeling "old enough" to do so.
#2 People have ideas about what they want, but most do not formalize it or communicate their intentions to those who matter.
#3 Many are not aware of how to prepare for the long term or are ready to navigate the complexity of legal, medical, and government systems.
GENERATIVE RESEARCH
We dug deeper into why people do not plan and what actions they need to take to make planning easier.
We learned that the barriers to planning include a lack of awareness, knowledge, motivation, commitment to act, and access to resources.
We translated our HMW statement into 3 questions — What does it take to be prepared? Why don't people plan? What do people need?
We used 3 research methods to answer these questions.
Secondary Research
To help individuals get prepared, we needed to understand what it means to be prepared first. We reviewed many legal, medical, and planning resources.
Experience Audit
We tried out a few different resources from our secondary research.
This helped us grasp what it takes to be prepared and the dependencies involved. Since everyone's life is unique, it entails different planning needs.
Generative Workshop
We designed a participatory workshop that allowed more in-depth discoveries about what matters the most to individuals, what a preferred end-of-life future looks like, what motivates planning and the barriers, and what could help shift mindsets and behaviors.
Key Insights
#1 There are various decisions to make, critical roles to assign, complex systems to figure out, and tedious processes to go through.
#2 There is a lack of awareness, knowledge, motivation, and commitment to act, and limited access to resources to help navigate complicated systems.
#3 Information can be scattered all over the place, and physical documents can be outdated or misplaced.
IDEATION + EVALUATIVE RESEARCH
We ideated solutions, explored directions and variations, tested with individuals, and refined and tested again.
Through the ideation process, we narrowed down our design concept to an app in the mobile OS ecosystem that makes planning part of living.
Storyboarding
for Speed Dating
We came up with diverse concepts and consolidated them into 4 directions. We then created storyboards to showcase how users could interact with the design. We got to speed-date these concepts with 10 people online.
Competitive Analysis
-
We analyzed 6 products/services in a similar space of legal + life planning. This reassured our niche product positioning. We also drew insights for the UX, UI, and tone of voice. We learned from what others did well and what warranted improvement.
We also spoke with one of the CEOs (Mr. Kamps of LifeFolder) and learned about the practical challenges for a start-up team to bring a product like this to life.
Wireframing + Prototyping
for User Testing
As we refined our concepts, we asked ourselves: Should our design exist on an existing platform or within an existing system? How could our design make the most impact?
After testing our concepts with 8 people online with wireframes and prototypes, our concept of a design solution existing within a mobile operating system won over social media, productivity tools, and others.
