The summary

The background: The Heart Foundation is an Australian-wide organisation that seeks to reduce premature death and suffering from heart stroke and blood vessel disease. Symplicit was engaged in helping the organisation map the current and ideal heart attack survivor journey to inform products and services needed to enhance the survivor experience.

My role: Overseen and in collaboration with the Director of Innovation, I planned and facilitated the research and monitored the budget.

The approach: We followed the Symplicit design framework; align, immerse, create, prove and finalise to provide evidence-based recommendations. We included stakeholders and heart attack survivors at key points throughout the process to ensure viable, feasible and desirable final recommendations.

The deliverables:

• Insights and recommendations,

• Journey map of the survivor’s current experience,

• Journey map of the survivor’s ideal experience,

• Strategic road map,

• Behavioural personas, and

• Content guidelines

The results: We delivered an evidence-based strategic roadmap and tools needed to execute the recommendations successfully. We aligned the stakeholders by using evidence to remove bias. 

The details

> Align: A common goal

Alignment workshop

Agree-upon the project goals, research approach and methods

We began the project by meeting with stakeholders to align on the project goals and agree-upon the research approach and methods. We also requested any past or present research or materials available that may inform our understanding of the problem space.

To better understand the heart attack survivors, we facilitated a brainstorming activity to identify the “typical” heart attack survivor based on the expertise of each stakeholder.

These activities revealed division across the nation-wide organisation and the importance of communication amongst stakeholders; therefore, we set up regular checkpoints with the stakeholders throughout the process.

> This step informed the project plan, secondary research to better understand the problem space and preparation for the stakeholder workshop.

> IMMERSE: Uncovering insights

Secondary research

Understand the problem space through existing research and landscape reviews

To prepare for the stakeholder workshop and gain a better understanding of the current landscape, I began immersing myself into the secondary research, including past and present reports and customer-facing information such as the website, booklets, brochures and social media, provided in the kick-off workshop and identified through discovery. 

I also worked with the designer to develop a landscape review of the ‘best in class’ experiences and worst experiences to provide inspiration as well as identify gaps between the Heart Foundation’s current product and service offerings.

> This step informed the discussions in the upcoming stakeholder workshop.

Stakeholder workshop

Understand the organisation’s perspective of the survivor’s current journey

We then facilitated a workshop with the stakeholders to understand the organisation’s perspective of the current survivor experience. We used the survivor segment details from the kick-off workshop to create two personas (typical and atypical survivor) to build out the current state journey map across key stages including touch points, gaps and barriers with existing products and services. We also identified questions the team would want to ask a survivor to address these gaps and barriers.

> This step informed a draft of the current state journey map as well as the upcoming contextual inquires including who we should speak with and questions to ask.

Recruitment

Find a common thread through diversity and address organisation bias

Based on the information gathered from the stakeholder interviews and workshop, we identified the recruitment criteria that would cover the breadth of experiences needed to improve the survivor experience.

Working closely with the recruitment agency we recruited twelve survivors with distinct circumstances. This approach addressed the individual stakeholder perspective and provided the opportunity to identify a common thread amongst the diverse survivor experiences. Four survivors were paired with their carers to offer another perspective. We had planned to meet with a cardiac doctor to give yet another view; however, unable to recruit within the timeframe, we scheduled two Cardiac Rehab sessions.

> This step informed who we spoke to in the contextual inquires.

Contextual interviews

Understand the motivators and detractors of a survivor through in-depth interviews

Paired with another researcher or designer, we met with the twelve survivors and carers in their homes.

We gained insight into their motivators and detractors through their approaches and attitudes towards medication, diet, exercise, their relationships and the impact these factors have to their recovery. Being in their environment enabled us to identify contradictions between what they said and what they did to inform an objective view. 

After each session, my partner and I debriefed on our observations to ensure we were aligned and sketched out the survivor’s current journey. 

> This step informed the current journey map and insights and opportunities to create the ideal survivor journey.

Analysis & synthesis

Make sense of the research to define the actual problem that needs to be solved

After the contextual interviews, we then analysed and synthesised all the verbatim and observations, that we captured into themes, then insights and finally opportunities. Through exceptional collaboration and communication, we synthesised hundreds of clues gathered by myself and four interview partners. As a result, we identified ten insights and six opportunities, and three behavioural personas to inform the ideal survivor experience.

To maintain confidence with our client, I invited our main point of contact to observe the sense-making process, explain the methodology and walk-through our initial findings. Understanding the process enabled her to advocate for and improve our approach, and improve the outcome amongst the team.

> This step informed the framework for the Social Innovation Workshop to ideate potential solutions.

Showcase

Realign by sharing the research results, progress and direction with stakeholders

To finalise the immerse stage, we shared the insights and opportunities derived from the research with the stakeholders. The purpose was to keep the stakeholders informed on the progress and direction of the project.

> This step realigned the stakeholders on the “actual” problem based on the new information uncovered in the research.

> Create: Using insights to inspire ideas

Social innovation (ideation) workshop

Ideate the potential solutions to improve the survivor experience

Next, we facilitated an ideation workshop with the key stakeholders to generate ideas that may improve the survivor experience using the insights, opportunities and personas identified in the contextual inquiries.

The goal of the session was to generate as many ideas as possible, regardless of their viability or feasibility at this stage. In groups, stakeholders ideated on an opportunity in two rounds. The second round used the landscape review as stimulus to inspire diverse ideas. Altogether the group generated over seventy ideas.

> This step provided the ideas to be prioritised in the Prioritisation Workshop to inform the most viable and feasible solutions from the organisations perspective.

Prioritisation workshop

Choose the most viable and feasible solutions to improve the survivor experience

Using the ideas from the previous ideation workshop, we met with the same stakeholders to identify and refine the best ideas, this time considering viability and feasibility. First, the stakeholder categorised the ideas as Easy to do, Medium, Low or Out of Scope. Focusing on the ideas that were in scope, the stakeholders then identified the weaknesses, strengthened and refined the idea. The stakeholders then voted for the best ideas.

> This step provided the ideas to be validated in the Survivor Validation Workshop to inform the final recommendation.

> Prove: Validating ideas

Survivor validation workshop

Validate the right solutions with actual survivors to guarantee a desirable solution

I then designed and facilitated two workshops with heart attack survivors to validate the top ideas. I worked with the recruitment agency to recruit survivors using the same diverse criteria as the initial contextual inquiries; again, to address the stakeholders' needs and to find a common thread amongst the survivors.

In the workshops, I shared the insights from the research and the top ideas. I encouraged participants to contribute their ideas to fill in any gaps.

Using various denominations of Monopoly money, survivors then validated the ideas by "investing" in the most valuable ideas. The ideas with the most substantial investment ranked as most important.

> This step informed the final recommendations for improving the survivor experience.

> Finalise: Creating a better experience

Mapping the survivor experience

Communicate the recommendations to improve the survivor experience

Based on the research, ideation and validation, we identified four key recommendation areas with ten survivor-validated ideas to support these areas. We also identified three behavioural states that a survivor might find themselves in throughout their journey and content guidelines to switch from a negative to a positive behavioural state.

The recommendations, their related ideas, the behavioural personas and the content guidelines are represented on the future state journey map to illustrate the recommendations in context. A current state journey map defines the baseline. A separate road map, recommendations, personas, and content guidelines provide the detail required to plan, design and validate future work.

> Results: A better experience

After the final presentation and sharing the strategy and supporting assets, the stakeholders acknowledged the efficiency of our methodology to uncover key insights and opportunity — something they had been trying to achieve for some time.

Sharing the voice and story of diverse survivors provided the irrefutable evidence needed to remove bias and create alignment within the nation-wide stakeholders.

> Take aways: Learnings for the next project

This was my all-time favourite project! I am very grateful for the opportunity to have contributed my expertise to such an important topic. I have always loved design because of the potential it has for positive change and am happy to know that I have contributed to a better survivor experience. It has changed me professionally and personally. 

I really enjoyed planning the approach and ultimately how each activity fed neatly into the next. I also am very pleased with the outcome of the final deliverables and how they effectively tell the survivor’s story and can be used as a tool by the team.

I also really enjoyed working so closely with the designers, rather than just handing over the report “over the fence”. The value of the team work and this process is seen in the quality of the final deliverables.

I had many learnings throughout this project — particularly organising the contextual inquiries and improvements to clue capturing and synthesis with such a large team that I have since applied to future projects.