Output details

KISTproject. (Portfolio of outcomes: Artifacts, workshops, feasibility study report, conference paper, journal publication, exhibition)

The KISTproject is research undertaken with the Children's Hospice Association Scotland (CHAS) involving children with life-shortening conditions, their families and carers, to understand needs and requirements for a service system to enable improved communication.

A feasibility study for KISTproject was funded by a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher and was reflected upon in a conference paper, (Journal Article).

White, H, et al. (2013) "Crafting Caring Communication: A case study on the value of collaborative making in a care context." 10th European Academy of Design Conference, Gothenburg 2013. The conference paper discusses the implications and benefits of collaborative making to design through analysis of the research.

Journal Poster: White H., Blair A., Press M., Halkett, C, McGill M., Nevay S., Hodge J. KIST: "Design in the service of care." 13th World congress of the European Association or Palliative Care, Prague. Journal of Palliative Medicine. (2013)

The paper discusses how the research uncovered latent communication needs and service solutions for children with life-limiting conditions. It demonstrated the value of using craft and co-design methods to enable a wide range of stakeholders: carers, service managers, children and their families to participate in the design of new products and services leading to insights which would not be made using traditional needs analysis techniques. The key insight was a need to communicate the life, likes and loves of a child who cannot communicate themselves. The research used craft workshops to create prototype tagged objects and digital networks to uncover and share children’s stories between carers and relatives.

The research has led to White being a Co-I on a sucessful EPSRC (£1.3million) Award with researchers from Dundee and Newcastle. White will examine how the co-design of wearable sensors to monitor activity of older people in care homes can improve wellbeing through better design of care environments.