Applying service design & UX in the fight against the virus

COVID-19 is having an unprecedented impact on our personal and business lives and wider society. People and companies are adapting rapidly to a new normal of social distancing and remote working. Whilst healthcare services are stretched, the world directs its collective effort to many challenges from developing rapid testing for the virus, manufacturing of much needed ventilators, and ultimately a vaccine.

Crises such as this inspire technological innovation, and many big businesses are helping in the fight(this will open in a new window) against COVID-19. Your own product design and development teams may be working around the clock on digital solutions to fight the virus directly or indirectly by helping individuals, businesses, medical teams, your own staff or your customers at this difficult time.

During the urgent development of these new systems and solutions, customer-centred service design and user experience will be critical to ensure that they succeed. Several factors can impact this such as the environment and context of use, the knowledge and training of the users, the interface and interaction design, and the workflow within which it is used. Depending on the system and users there may be other factors such as the use of personal protective equipment, the learning curve and the accessibility for users with disabilities. In short, no matter how technically robust a system is, there are several critical human factors aspects that will need to be investigated and controlled for during the design, otherwise a difficult to use system may result.

User Vision’s expertise can contribute greatly to these efforts. Therefore we are offering to apply our UX and service design skills on a 50% discount basis for any projects that are related to the Coronavirus.

The new COVID-19 related services and products are not confined to any particular platform. Innovative products and services can be created for desktop, mobile and voice to help in the fight against the virus and to mitigate its impact on our society. The type of projects this could include are:

• The NHS and health authorities developing new systems and services for testing, contact tracing, treatment, managing staffing, appointments and communications with employees and patients
• National and local public sector organisations and emergency services adapting their services to be effective in a very different delivery context
• Charities that are addressing specific health and wellbeing concerns
• Businesses that are creating new products and services, or adapting existing ones ,to the new demands caused by the virus and also looking after the safety and welfare of their own staff

Our team is extending our help to meet this challenge through our expertise in user research, contextual analysis, experience design, usability testing and accessibility services. As this is a global challenge, it is especially important that most of our UX services can be delivered remotely just as effectively as in-person, and we have vast experience in working this way with our international clients.

If you are engaged in a project that is in any way related to the COVID-19 outbreak, whether in the context of medical support, emergency services, charities or public-facing technologies, we encourage you to contact us to discuss your project and how we can support you.