Co-creation
Communication with team members and stakeholders
Working collaboratively with a team
Leadership skills
 

The University Hospital East is located in a food desert in Columbus, OH. The main campus hospital cafe was being completely renovated, but UHE East was not. They wanted make people feel that they had a new, updated cafe, with fresh and healthy foods. They also wanted to balance their offerings with consumer needs and desires. Through updated signage, UHE wanted to provide more education so that consumers could make healthier choices, rather than feeling those choices were forced on them.

 

Observations and Interviews

Meeting with Stakeholders and defining objectives

Planning Methodology

Presenting Initial Findings

Planning

Conducting a Pilot

Revising Materials

Conducting a Co-Creation Workshop

Analysis

Presenting Final Results

 

Team Leader

Communication Coordinator

Conducted Observations and interviews

Planning

Lead Moderator for pilot and workshops

Writing Presentation Materials

Presenting

 

The team delivered a final presentation to stakeholders as part of the OSU Design Research class. This presentation included our findings, opportunities for the overall cafe design, and signage options designed by two team members. The presentation also included a video of our process created by another student.

Participants from UHE staff  completed three separate activities. In the first activity, participants were given two circles and a variety of word and image stimulus. They were to create a Venn-Diagram, placing items they like to eat in one circle, items that are healthy in the second circle, and items that fit in both categories in the middle circle. This gave the project team insight into what foods were considered healthy and what types of foods participants would like in their cafe, as well as the differences between these items. The activity also gave UHE insight into how participants thought about food and what it means for a food to be healthy.

One main question UHE had was how they should design their menu boards. A current system was already in place at the main hospital campus. This design was shown to participants. Participants were given a variety of options - chalkboard, website, app, whiteboard, paper, or their own medium and several stimulus pictures adn words. Stimulus included things like fat, calories, color-coded suggestions, images, and more. Participants were asked to create their ideal menu structure. This gave UHE insight into what type of information is important to participants in terms of making a decision about what they want to eat, and also what medium is best suited for this information.

In this activity, participants were shown a variety of cafe designs. Participants were given green stickers to choose cafe designs they liked, and pink stickers to choose cafe designs they did not like. The participants then were led in a group discussion to understand what elements of a cafe were desirable. This gave UHE insight into current and future design implications for the cafe.

UHE was provided with insights on future menu designs and cafes. My teammates provided mock-ups of a chalkboard display and phone / web application.