Design for the inevitable. How to ensure your product experiences take a “whole life” perspective of your users.
Life is messy and it is time product experiences become more sensitive to this fact. Most tend to focus on serving needs related to only the scenarios that commonly, and most directly, relate to the promised value of the service. Death, and other life events, are often considered edge cases that exist outside of this ‘common core’. The problem with this perspective is that it labels life events as ‘if’ scenarios. Death is not a case of ‘if’, but when. Even in spaces where death is more likely to be encountered, such as healthcare, the role the product and service should play in it is often unclear, leaving it to be addressed in an ad hoc, reactive manner. We can do better.
Death is an inevitable part of people’s lives. As such, our products inevitably need to deal with it, whether they were intended to or not. Companies like Google and Facebook have recognized the importance of providing appropriate support mechanisms for people to prepare for and manage scenarios surrounding death. At Collective Health, we also believe this to be a worthwhile effort. We are taking the complexity out of healthcare by making it effortless for people to understand, navigate and access their health benefits. Our aim is to make this true regardless of whether they are on a journey towards health or navigating the loss of a life.
Over the past year, our design, engineering, product and care support teams have joined forces to ensure our product experiences remain sensitive to the emotional, logistical and social complexities of death. We are blending technology, data, and human-centered design practices to build mechanisms to prevent unintended moments of product insensitivity and help people prepare for, and navigate, end of life situations. In this talk, we’ll share methods for executing this and insights we’ve gained in our effort to be more proactive, compassionate and helpful to individuals, and their families, who are meeting one of life’s most inevitable moments.
