Medyum

Challenge

Death is not for Everyone

This course challenged us to research how healthcare workers cope with the presence of death in their daily work, with the goal of exploring how design might support a more professional and resilient approach. Our objective was to understand the unique emotional challenges these professionals face and to create a design proposal that could offer them effective coping mechanisms. This project was inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic, a period that brought death into the daily lives of many in ways they hadn’t experienced before.

Framing

Keyword Analysis and Desktop Research

We began by breaking down the challenge into core themes. Each team member conducted desktop research to uncover key elements related to “Death” in this context. Through a focused keyword analysis, we identified guiding questions to frame our exploration, as outlined below:

Gaining Empathy – Interviews

Our first step as a team was to conduct interviews with doctors, healthcare professionals, and priests from various cultural backgrounds. After two weeks of careful preparation, we developed a set of questions and selected interviewees from around the world. This diversity provided us with a global, multicultural perspective on the theme of death.

Questions for Doctors / Healthcare Professionals

• How long have you been practicing as a doctor/medical professional?

• When and why did you decide to study medicine? What motivated you?

• What have you found most challenging about your profession?

• Do you find it difficult to cope with a patient’s death?

• What is the hardest part of dealing with a patient’s death?

• Do you ever feel the need for support in coping with the loss of a patient?

Situational Questions

• Were your expectations different from what you’ve experienced as a professional?

• How do you communicate the news of a patient’s death to their family?

• How could the process of a patient’s death be better handled or managed within a hospital setting?

• Do you have any personal views about the dying process?

Questions for Experts

• What is your professional background?

• What motivated you to pursue a career in this field?

• What have you found most challenging about your profession?

• Do you have a story from your work that has personally impacted you?

• What is the most difficult part of working with death or supporting people who have lost someone?

• What would you suggest to make this experience less challenging or to improve the process?

Situational Questions

• Has the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way you work?

• Are you aware of any organizations currently working to improve this area?

Data Gathering

Synthesis - Interviews and Charrette

To synthesize our interview data, we used the design charrette method, organizing selected quotes into key themes:

• Limits of Medicine: Understanding that doctors cannot perform miracles

• Coping with Death as a Healthcare Worker: Focusing on doctors’ mental health

• Communicating News of Death: Managing interactions with the deceased patient’s family or relatives

• Working Conditions: Long hours, tedious routines, and limited opportunities for vacations

• Coping with Trauma: Addressing trauma related to patient deaths (doctors’ mental health)

• Lack of Emotional Outlets: Identifying the absence of spaces for doctors to express emotions

• Public Education on Death: Raising awareness about the realities of doctors’ work and responsibilities

• Integrating Therapy: Incorporating therapeutic practices as part of medical settings

• Support for Bereavement: Providing assistance to those in mourning

Data Analysis

Using the collected data and interview quotes, we analyzed the information by creating empathy maps, POV statements, and ultimately two user personas.

An empathy map and a corresponding POV statement were created for each interviewee. Here, we present the most significant empathy map and POV statement, focusing on the key theme of communication.

Interviewee – User

Topic: COMMUNICATION

We interviewed a doctor from Chile who works as an internist in Santiago.

Her main challenge is the difficulty of delivering news to a patient’s family, particularly in spaces that aren’t designed for sensitive conversations.

It was surprising to learn how much doctors value the environment in which they communicate with relatives about a patient’s condition or death, especially in a profession where emotional distance is often encouraged to prevent burnout.

She expressed a desire to improve the setting where doctors speak with patient families and to develop better communication skills for these situations.

Additional empathy maps

User Personas

Based on each interviewee’s main pain points, we identified two key clusters: communication and working conditions and wellbeing. From this information, we created two personas—one for each cluster—while also incorporating shared pain points.

Each persona includes a set of photos representing a week in their life, a Spotify playlist, favorite books, movies, and series, a description of their appearance and personality, their personality type according to the 16 Personalities Test, and personal reflections on their feelings.

Ideation

To kick off the ideation process, our team gathered to work through a series of design thinking exercises aimed at generating focused, effective ideas. Before starting, we discussed our project’s current stage, defined our users, and clarified the requirements to ensure our ideas were both innovative and grounded in our research findings.

The tools we used included:

• Silent Brainstorming

• Characters/Brands

• Circle of Shame

• Drawing Online

• Roleplaying

These exercises proved highly effective, leading to more ideas than we initially expected. We then organized our ideas into nine categories: Objects, Space, Philosophy, Experiences, Emotions, Gifts, Communication, and Simulation.

In a follow-up session, we reviewed our ideas and voted on those that best aligned with user needs. This also prompted us to refine our research question. Our findings pointed to two main user pain points—communication and facilities/working conditions. After further analysis, we finalized a revised research question and completed an additional round of ideation.

Finally, we held one last vote to combine the best ideas. This entire process helped us refine our design approach and deepen our understanding of the end users.

Prototyping

With our best ideas selected, we began the design process. First, we developed a guiding concept to ensure a unified direction, aiming for final products that were user-friendly, easy to build, environmentally friendly, and cost-effective.

We each created a moodboard to visually represent these core ideas, then began individual sketching. Additionally, we built prototypes for each of our initial ideas.

We designed a fabric armband that uses color coding to communicate different emotions. The user can fold it to display only one specific color, with each color representing a chosen feeling or state, depending on the healthcare worker’s preference. We also created a similar color-coded wristband, made of rubber and worn as a bracelet, serving the same purpose.

Building on the idea of the wristbands and armbands, we prototyped a color-coded badge that can be pinned to healthcare workers’ uniforms. This badge uses a set of four colors to communicate different feelings.

We also prototyped an installation called From Grief to Self-Belief, designed as a corner feature in a room to provide users with a private space for solitude, offering a retreat from the busy hospital environment.

Finally, we created a prototype for a foldable, accordion-shaped soundproof panel, intended to help isolate areas in hospitals from surrounding noise.

We sketched additional large-scale concepts, including a designated safe space for overwhelmed healthcare professionals. Another idea was a foldable, circular hanging structure that could be pulled down to shield and isolate the user from their surroundings, offering a sense of peace and security during challenging moments.

We presented our work to potential users and our studio lecturer, Mito Mihelic. Based on their feedback, we decided to create a brand focused on supporting doctors’ well-being in stressful situations when emotional coping is especially challenging.

At this stage, we assessed each team member’s background to see how their expertise could enhance the final product. As a graphic designer, I took charge of brand development and the final presentation. Daniyal, a UX specialist, handled logistics, ensuring feasibility in terms of numbers, connections, and supplies. Shruti, a product designer, managed materials and production aspects. Finally, Diana and Ali, as industrial designers, led the sketching, 3D modeling, and product detailing. While each of us had specific roles, teamwork remained central, allowing us to create a project we were all proud of—and one that excited our target users.

The final two products are Yumpods and Yumcare, both part of the Medyum brand. Yumpods is a modular space designed to provide medical workers with a moment of escape within the hospital itself. Yumcare is a color-coded pin that enables doctors to communicate using a system they create themselves, with four colors (Black, Yellow, White, and Purple). A slider allows the user to select the desired color.

Yumpods

Yumcare

Evaluation

Creating multiple physical and digital prototypes enabled us to gather valuable feedback from potential users on our selected ideas. This allowed us to refine the final design based on their input.

Sketches

Following these updates, we used CAD software and 3D rendering to visualize the product in greater detail, obtaining further feedback from users and the course professor, who ultimately approved its feasibility.

Game Plan

We will start from Berlin!

How much will it cost?

Where can we get the funding?

Presentation

We created a video to showcase our final products. The first part highlights the product features to appeal to potential users and investors, while the second part focuses on the design process.

To plan the video, we co-wrote a script to present our product with a coherent and engaging narrative. Light Italic was used for visual references, Medium for spoken text, and Medium Cyan for displayed quotes.

First Part

Second Part

Development

We collected footage that could be useful by using a different range of sources:

• YouTube: Curated a list of documentaries and videos on healthcare workers’ challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Vimeo: Used high-definition video clips from this dedicated hosting platform.

• Pexels: Selected free stock videos from a large collection.

• Unsplash: Included high-quality, free stock images.

• Bensound: Chose royalty-free music to suit the video’s tone.

Given our tight timeline, we divided tasks based on each team member’s design background and skill set.

For the video voice-over, we used Synthesia, a text-to-video service that offers over 60 languages and various realistic avatars. We chose a voice and then slowed it down in post-production to make it more suitable for this context. Only the audio was used, discarding the video component.