After much reflection, from the start of LRNT 524: Innovation, Design and Learning Environments until our end meeting to discuss the design thinking process, I have come up with the following design principles. Not only will these principles be used for my personal use, but I will put them forward for consideration at the hospital where I work. I also believe that these principles should not just be tied to educational design, but in general for all we produce as an organization. I believe that these principles closely align with our organization’s values and that by integrating these principles into all that we design, it can help ensure that we are living up to our mission: “Make each life better. Together” (Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre, 2021).

Always Put People First

  • When designing, always ask yourself, “who will this benefit?” The answer should always be patients, family, staff, or volunteers. If the answer at any time differs, it is time to rethink the design and to shift the focus to how it can benefit the end-user. There are times where the organization must meet a legislated or mandated requirement, but the material can still be designed to benefit our people while meeting the organization’s goal.

Be Compassionate to People’s Needs

  • Design should always be inclusive and meet the needs of as many people as possible. We need to ensure the material we deliver and the format it is presented in is accessible and takes into consideration diverse populations’ cultural, physiological, and neurological needs (Takacs et al., 2021).

Outcome-Driven

  • Design should be grounded in achieving specified outcomes, and specified outcomes should also be tied back to people. We need to set expectations and desired outcomes as the first step in our design process and have validation practices in place to ensure our end-product meets the outcomes (Caspersen et al., 2017).

Explain the Why

  • People want to understand the purpose and intentions behind things. When we are transparent in explaining why we are asking people to do, or not do, something, it helps to build their trust in us.

Make it Sustainable

  • Design should always consider the sustainability, to the environment and to the organization, of a final product. We need to look at ways to minimize our impact on the environment, while also considering if the end result can have a lasting impact on the organization (Selwyn, 2021).

Think big, but Design Small

  • Be innovative in design in order to make sure what we deliver is engaging, but it is important to design it in a way to make sure it is accessible at the same time. People are busy and time is precious; we need to make sure what we produce is asking for as little of their time as possible in order to meet our outcomes (Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre, 2021).

The Final Product is Never Final

  • Nothing is perfect and there is always room for improvement. We need to actively seek feedback and criticism and use it to re-evaluate and redesign often to ensure we are meeting our goals, staying true to our principles, and evolving our design (Plattner, 2018).

References

Caspersen, J., Smeby, J.C., Olaf Aamodt, P. (2017, February). Measuring learning outcomes. European Journal of Education, 52(1), 20–30. DOI: 10.1111/ejed.12205

Plattner, H. (2018). Design thinking bootleg. Institute of Design at Stanford. https://dschool.stanford.edu/resources/design-thinking-bootleg

Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre. (2021) My care strategic plan. Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre. https://www.rvh.on.ca/about-rvh/strategic-plan/

Selwyn, N. (2021). Ed-Tech Within Limits: Anticipating educational technology in times of environmental crisis. E-Learning and Digital Media, 18(5), 496–510. https://doi.org/10.1177/20427530211022951

Takacs, S., Zhang, J., Lee, H., Truong, L., & Smulders, D. (2021) A comprehensive guide to applying universal design for learning. Centre for Teaching, Learning, and Innovation. Justice Institute of British Columbia. https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/jibcudl/