Worldwide, we are still significantly dependent on medical institutions and staff to measure, collect and store data about our bodies and health status. But through the increasing use of information technologies in the medical field, it is likely that medical practice will soon be revolutionized by the process of democratization.
How can we contribute and shape this process as designers?Workshop; Social Design
Designing for the concept of WE in times of the self
In these times the improvement of the self got to a new level of interest in optimizing one´s own status, knowledge, behaviour or body. But by all this care and design of the self, concepts of a WE are slowly diminishing. So how can WE be addressed by Design?
Workshop; Social Design
Materiality – How can we design the digital?
Materials are everywhere. They become visible through their structures and surfaces that seem to inhabit an important role to mediate different aspects between us and our artefacts.
Materiality; Design
Designexperiment – Experimental methods in Design
An experiment can testify a hypothesis, or just give proof for some expectations. But at the same time it inhabits also moments of astonishment where things can come to the surface that surprise. Experimental methods in design utilise exactly these moments of surprise to discover attentional gaps and make use of their unintentional power in a structured way of working.
Experiment; Method; Design; Designexperiment
Design Medical Democratization
In the future collecting and analyzing endogenous data through medical devices could be done by the patient himself at home. In this scenario, a redesign of medical devices must embody a specific form of authority and democratic power, as found in participative or collaborative design processes.
The research project investigates the possible realization and effects of such future devices on medical practice and care as well as on the practice of design. It is aimed to gain insights especially for the future role of designers and their social responsibility in the context of designing highly technical artifacts for our distributed heterogeneous societal practices.
Healthcare; Design; Democratization; Participation; Medical; Device
Realtime Results
With the use of real-time systems, medical processes could be optimized, because data could be provided right in time when it is needed and it could be continuously updated. This would affect both, the results, as well as their representation and mediation in the full impact of treatment.
In the thesis REALTIME RESULTS it is examined in which way the use of real-time technologies would have impact on patients and physicians, as well as their medical practices and procedures to become sensitized for upcoming opportunities and risks in using and dealing with this technology in the field of medical results.
For the design of medical products that use real-time techmologies three priorities derived. These will be applied in practical applications, for example in the field of diagnostic imaging to show possible intersections, connections and effects of this technology on people, medical products and the medical system. The result of this work should inspire future medical product developments or environments that want to integrate real-time technologies.
Effects of Forms – Forms of Effects
Right until the late 18th century, animal and plant products were used as medicine, as well as human body parts and fluids. People believed, for example, that beans had a curative effect in kidney diseases, and because of their form, walnuts were used for treatments of the brain. In those days implications of natural products were mostly drawn from their form, taste or smell.
Today some companies make again use of these old mechanisms of cognition, and transfer the concept of tautological design to their products. The pharmaceutical company Merck, for example, recently developed a heartshaped tablet named „Concor“, which activates through the perception of form the implicit mental concept behind, that a heart-shaped pill is good for the heart. The shape and colour implicits in this case very obvious, the expected effect of the tablet. Because of this fact it is interesting to ask if objects, particularly for medical contexts, can be designed in such a way, that they have an impact on the healing process of the patient.
