sarawilcox
commented
5 months ago Linked issue: How we write
Open MiriamVaswani opened 5 months ago
sarawilcox
commented
5 months ago Linked issue: How we write
sarawilcox
commented
4 months ago Trauma informed research and design resources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTEmIFxxU0ncEcnCmgBV184xBEC_hioE7Yk194NfcJXP2l7ufhWsEchuNK7xL8XtZTWSmKkn4CHJ_C3/pub
GOV.UK Design System Day 2023: Trauma-informed research and design Katrina Birch, Janice Hannaway, Kate Every and Helen Baron
Whether you consider yourself well informed about trauma-informed approaches to research and design or were curious and wanted to learn more, this was an opportunity to engage with a multidisciplinary panel and colleagues across the public and private sector who are working towards more compassionate and aware design.
What
Guidance for trauma-informed content design, potentially added to the ‘clear’ section of ‘How we write’.
This is the proposed guidance.
Direct, action-oriented language
Stress and trauma change the way people understand words and sentences. Directive, unambiguous content is easier for people experiencing trauma or high stress to understand. We use a clear action word at the beginning of the sentence.
We would say:
We would not say:
Leave no room for misunderstanding. If your users may be experiencing trauma or high stress and there is a correct or best course of action, do not ask them to decide. Tell them what to do and use clear key words.
We would say:
We would not say:
Why
Me and my team have been applying trauma-informed design principles to our work on Wayfinder for 2 years.
We first noticed a pattern of misunderstanding in our usability testing for phase 1 (cancelling and rescheduling secondary care appointments).
Usability testing participants:
It happened when they were trying to achieve a goal while using our prototype and scenario.
For example, cancelling a diabetes clinic appointment.
Normally, we would iterate our design to make it more understandable. But patients weren’t getting stuck in the same places. It seemed more arbitrary. And, when we showed the same usability testing participants the same design without a scenario, they understood it easily. Some expressed surprise that they had struggled with it a few minutes earlier.
For example, after the task was complete and they looked again at the cancellation screen, most people easily understood the difference between real-time cancellations and requests to cancel.
In the same usability testing, we saw a pattern of stress linked to past healthcare experiences. People:
prioritised “getting through” the journey with as little damage as possible were focused on not getting “trapped” or “stuck” in the journey shared extremely difficult experiences of healthcare access and treatment
Patients shared experiences including:
We saw a difference when we iterated the design to be more directive - telling people what to do rather than giving options or information that they had to interpret. We also removed ambiguity.
For example, we changed the instruction of a free text questionnaire for an asthma appointment from ‘describe your breathing’ to ‘describe your breathing on an average day’. In usability testing, 2 patients got stuck at ‘describe your breathing’ because of its ambiguity. As well as struggling with the meaning, they struggled with the fear of what would happen if they answered incorrectly.
We know Wayfinder users need it because we’ve collected evidence in usability testing that the specific process of accessing healthcare is, for many patients, a highly stressful experience. And, that past experiences add to patients’ cognitive load when they manage appointments in the present.
We believe that a trauma-informed approach would meet NHS patients’ needs across services because illness, injury, and healthcare often involve factors that contribute to trauma - pain, fear, vulnerability and loss of control.
Useful reading
https://sparck.io/journal/improve-your-crisis-response-with-human-centred-design
https://blog.chayn.co/trauma-informed-design-understanding-trauma-and-healing-f289d281495c
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://assets.website-files.com/60fdc9111506063bb9fe8e49/64b081438e3221d7ffc92b12_Trauma-informed%20design_%20the%20whitepaper%20by%20Chayn.pdf
https://contentdesign.london/blog/using-trauma-informed-principles-with-content-design
https://uxdesign.cc/trauma-informed-design-research-69b9ba5f8b08
https://bookshop.org/p/books/trauma-and-recovery-the-aftermath-of-violence-from-domestic-abuse-to-political-terror-judith-lewis-herman/12665927
https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-body-keeps-the-score-brain-mind-and-body-in-the-healing-of-trauma-bessel-van-der-kolk/6679040
https://medium.com/researchops-community/applying-trauma-informed-principles-to-user-centred-design-8b4e51c9ca49