The Digital Health and Care Institute is a new innovation centre in Scotland which aims to transform health and social care delivery using a dynamic model of innovation (www.dhi-scotland.com). Experience Laboratories are at the core of this model and are led and developed by the Institute of Design Innovation at The Glasgow School of Art.
Experience Labs provide a new way of working collaboratively within health and social care contexts in Scotland through a process of exploration, co-design and co-creation, and rapid prototyping of ideas. Bringing together academic, business and civic partners, Experience Labs provide the opportunity for extreme collaboration in a safe and realistic environment. Through a series of design-led activities, which position the user at the centre of the design process, the Labs enable the trialling of ideas and co-design of sustainable health and social care solutions, together with end-users.
This paper presents the findings of a design-led project to co-design a new directory of services application for the Scottish Ambulance Service. The Experience Lab aimed to explore and develop a basic prototype of a Directory App to support ambulance clinicians to consider alternatives to Accident and Emergency where appropriate, and support initial small scale testing. The Experience Labs provided the opportunity to co-design, develop and test a solution with users. The design-led approach enabled the delivery of a set of user-driven requirements for the development of the Directory App. The safe space for trialling and testing provided by the Labs together with the design-led approach allowed users to share their ideas and experience, contributing to the design of the ideal Directory App.