Design is well-suited to the task of rapid prototyping, supporting organizations through adaptation and change, and facilitating community-building within a landscape of systems and actors who may not normally collaborate. The opportunity for design’s beacons — always illuminating person-centered, empathy-driven, and equity-focused opportunities — can help light the way as we circle the wagons during this unprecedented time of a global health crisis.
Our team has had the privilege and honor to work on a number of COVID-19 related initiatives in our community and beyond.
Here are a few highlights.
We had an amazing opportunity to support our community’s frontline response to COVID-19.
We worked with drive-thru testing site teams at Dell Medical School and CommUnityCare Health Centers in Austin, TX and created a service design workflow guide for best practices that apply human-centered design solutions to tensions between the needs of people receiving care, those providing care, and the health system as a whole. We’re sharing this resource widely with health systems, federally qualified health centers, and businesses looking to stand up drive-thru testing operations or improve efficiencies and scale existing sites to handle increased volume and demand.
We partnered with the City of Austin’s Office of Design and Delivery to rapidly stand up a community forum tool to serve as a matchmaker for local organizations and businesses that serve or feed vulnerable communities in Travis County.
The site went live four days after the City Office of Sustainability asked for support in addressing their overwhelmed inboxes amidst crisis response. The City’s Food Policy Manager shared several success stories where resources were rapidly matched with urgent needs and how this type of rapid design response is remarkable in the local government space.
Our team working on improving social service coordination in affordable housing communities pivoted from in-person to more frequent and creative virtual services as stay-at-home orders rolled out locally.
The pandemic surfaced needs from community members who had not engaged in the previous few months of the team’s services rollout. Newly designed offerings include opt-in text message check-ins to ask if residents need resources or would like 1:1 support; virtual meditation and scavenger hunt sessions conducted over an easily-accessible collaboration platform; creativity kits that include art supplies to make projects that can be displayed in windows to show solidarity with neighbors; and self-guided connectivity prompts for those who are not opting in to virtual offerings.
Individually, our team members were granted four hours of work time per week to use their design skillset on COVID-19 response support efforts of their choosing.
One team member is serving on the board of the Masks For Docs Foundation, a volunteer collective making and distributing, protective equipment (PPE) worldwide; another team member supported the Austin Mutual Aid online resource consolidation effort; and another designed a communications plan for her child’s preschool that incorporated parent needs while also meeting the school’s administrative needs.