During this project I looked into the life of a disadvantaged parent by focusing on their social and geographic environment and made some conclusions about what their life might be like.
This activity was part of an innovative industry partnership between RMIT university and Primary Health Network — North Western Melbourne (PHN NWM).
Throughout this human centred design activity I focused on empathetically engaging with the experience of a child and family in the “First 1000 Days” from conception through to 2 years old. Based on the information supplied and my own investigations I developed an understanding of the family, their situation and the issues and problems that face them.
The below challenge can be summed up with the question:
How might we provide support to mothers in order to reduce prenatal and postnatal depression during the first 1000 days of motherhood?
How might we provide support to mothers in order to reduce prenatal and postnatal depression during the first 1000 days of motherhood?
From defining the territory of the selected persona (Hani), to mapping her relationships, developing an understanding for her circumstances, I moved to defining the adjacent services, support structures, engagement points and third places they may draw on. I created a network map of significant spaces, places and services for your her and her family (i.e: medical spaces, support services like counselors etc., recreational and educational spaces). In addition to that I mapped Hani's relationships from immediate family, health care providers and tried to understand also if there is anything in her past that could be impacting her. This required some extrapolation and imagination as I didn't have all of the information about Hani so the solution was to think creatively about her relationships. I challenged the existing service design approaches and creatively communicated emotional experience by using poetry to dive deeper into Hani's psychy.
I also did a thorough desktop research that included checking forums and blogs of new mothers, reading multiple scientific journals and articles, creating journey maps etc.
The outcome was creating a design strategy and prototypes of human centred design solutions that could potentially help mothers through pre and postnatal depression.
