EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION OF USER RESEARCH OUTCOMES IN DESIGN FOR WELL-BEING: ADAPTATION OF THE DESIGN WELL-BEING MATRIX IN A PREGNANCY CASE

Design literature increasingly highlights the importance of effective communication of information because designers parlay diverse range of information during the design process, user research produces a huge amount of data, and the entire design journey involves communication points among diverse stakeholders (Goodman et al. 2006; Nickpour, 2017). In a sense, the design researcher and/or designer—depending on the involvement degree of the designer in the research phase—has to do double empathy with users and other stakeholders (team members, departments, disciplines, managers, clients). Empathy with users is crucial to provide meaningful input for design. Empathy with other stakeholders is necessary to communicate output from user research in an effective way with diverse objectives, such as better representing the users’ worlds, taking decision, receiving support, persuading stakeholders, and so on (Holtzblatt and Holtzblatt, 2014; Roschuni et al., 2015; Wiegand and Li, 2017). Being aware of these dynamics and focusing on the needs of the designer, who has a key role in this information transfer and integration of research findings in design, can be even more crucial when introducing or utilising newly emerging research materials in nascent design fields. Since frameworks, models, and tools are actually mediums for communicating deeper information, effective communication of them would foster the development of a shared language and robust progression of the emerging field.