Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design (Stockholm, Sweden)
Designer: Stina Wessman
Dimensions: 100 x 80 cm
Tutor: Hlin Helga
Degree: MA, Experience Design Group
Project Description
How could the child be integrated in the situation when a close relative is in palliative care? This has been the fundamental question in Stina Wessman’s thesis work, which resulted in this project.
Palliative care is the care given at the end of life. The most common activity relatives do when visiting kindred in palliative care is to sit around the bed and talk about everyday life. There are many boundaries in this situation. You might not know what to say, and the whole situation can be perceived as frightening from a child’s perspective. In order to offer relief to the relatives, the patient and especially the child, Stina Wessman has created an inclusive, playful and interactive solution for the relatives with ‘The Blanket Book’.
Experience Design is a response to the urgent question: How might design continue to be relevant within what many are calling the I-Cubed (Information, Innovation, Intangible) Economy? A ride on a rollercoaster at Disneyland is an intangible that takes place over time; it is entertaining and valuable: An interdisciplinary team no doubt designed it before we knew to call them “experience designers.” So too with healthcare, another intangible that takes place over time, gives care and is valuable — although by now healthcare professionals know to call on experience designers to apply methodologies such as design thinking, future forecasting, and experience prototyping to improve patient recovery time. Increasingly design has gained a greater sphere of influence, which is to say that it has become progressively more interdisciplinary or even postdisciplinary.
At The Experience Design Group we implement the belief that designers should be educated as critical thinkers and strategists capable of addressing cross-disciplinary problems; we design social, political, economic and educational “systems,” which in turn provide designers with greater reach, responsibility, influence and relevance. Experi -ence Design, in other words, does not end at the limits of design; it goes beyond those borders to include human capital, leadership, research and development, goodwill, innovation, social media, collaboration, organizational ability, systems design, interdisciplinarity, effectiveness, soft power, productivity and new knowledge, which have become the real determinants of performance and value in the I-Cubed Economy. And Experience Designers are its change agents.