CLIENT: WHAKARONGORAU AOTEAROA
Re-imagining Whakarongorau Aotearoa's COVID and Healthline services so that Māori and Pacific Peoples are drawn to using them because they feel at home and understood
PROJECT CONTEXT
We have been working with Whakarongorau Aotearoa’s Chief Experience Officer for the past two years as the business’ chosen New Service Design partner on social innovation projects that address the business’ goal of improving the health outcomes for Māori and Pacific Peoples.
With the COVID pandemic ever present, our work has been integral to this goal given its heightened immediacy and the role that a free, telehealth line plays in improving health outcomes suddenly took on a new perspective.
PROJECT PROCESS
Our expertise in co-design and the ability to work in such a way that shows cultural empathy and competency for Whakarongorau Aotearoa’s customers and employees was at the forefront of this work.
We collectively identified users and non-users of Healthline and began a phase of Discover and Define to deeply understand their current experiences of the health system before we could focus on the role of Heathline. Our in-depth research took place in community settings familiar to participants over the sharing of kai and stories with translators present. The insights from our research informed the next phases of the project (Develop and Deliver) which lead to both short and long-term solutions, ready for refinement and implementation by Whakarongorau Aotearoa and their community partners.
A little about the importance of co-design - this methodological approach has repeatedly proven to be a successful approach for solving social problems as the ‘users’ of the service are seen as the experts of their experiences and are actively involved in visualising and shaping solutions. Engaging and collaborating with Māori and Pacific Peoples in familiar and safe environments is fundamental to our co-design approach.
PROJECT OUTPUTS
The impact of the design outputs for this project have been far-reaching within Whakarongorau Aotearoa:
-
Rich insights identifying the factors that govern Māori and Pacific Peoples’ approach to health
-
Customer profiles that bring to life the situations, motivations and needs of service users
-
How Might We statements that capture the design opportunity
-
Design principles centred on te ao Māori - these closely align with Whakarongorau Aotearoa’s own values
-
Detailed customer journey maps showing current and future state service experiences with critical Moments that Matter
-
Concepts & solutions - as an example, Whakarongorau Aotearoa, have implemented an 0800 # specifically for Māori and Pacific Peoples giving them choice in how they receive their health care
We made workshop participants feel at home during our Discover phase by producing a simple booklet to capture their stories with a translator always present.
Participants at a co-design, ideation workshop building out their thoughts and ideas on how to solve the How Might We statement using origami as a prototyping tool:
How might we...adapt our service experience for people who are held back by cultural norms but need help?
A customer journey map showing ‘Nina’s’ journey as she engages with Healthline - whakawhanaungatanga and whanaungatanga appear as critical ‘Moments that Matter’ which are depicted as weaving their way through her journey, thus embodying, te ao Māori.
An example of how we produce reports for our clients - headline statements, succinct text, visuals to support the content and a clear story that both those involved in the project and those new to it can immediately follow and understand what action to take as result of the findings.