Alexandra Spiroff is a human-centered designer on a quest: Improving patient outcomes.
As human-centered designers, Alex believes that we have the power to design innovative and impactful solutions for real residents in our communities. Her average day? Challenging assumptions at every step of the design process. Helping clinical teams better integrate the patient voice in their work. And, baking a mean butternut squash tart.
We caught up with Alex to talk innovation, empathy, and weeding out bad ideas. Here’s a summary of our conversation.
As a human-centered designer, you’re asked to facilitate innovative ideas and weed out non-impactful solutions. Can you explore this aspect of your work?
In general, bad ideas are solutions not vetted by people that are going to ultimately use them.
That’s the simplest way to put it. Sometimes we get so excited by technology and all these services available that we want to throw everything at a problem. Bad solutions are ones that don’t solve the issue at hand.
What’s the most satisfying impact you’ve fostered this month?
We led a workshop in collaboration with MATTER, a team focused on facilitating innovation at Northwestern Medicine. It was a room full of clinicians, who were really engaged and excited. These are the people on the frontlines, caring for patients, and we got the chance to brainstorm with them about how to include frontline voices in their work and create solutions based on patient needs.
The work we do, helping to foster innovation through human-centered design principles, has the power to make care better and realign clinical teams with the needs of their patients and frontline staff.
You live with diabetes and work in the Healthcare space. Where do these paths overlap? What do organizations get wrong about diabetes language?
I didn’t start in human-centered work, I started out in graphic design. I was drawn to the human-centered design field because of my experiences as a patient, where I often haven’t felt listened to or included.
I’ve not felt in the loop or connected to my own care. Which doesn’t make any sense, because I am the expert on what I need, right? When people take the time to bring patients into the design process, we can reach a much richer solution much quicker.
Your experience as a patient and designer gives you unique empathy. What’s the role of empathy in Human-Centered Design?
Empathy is everything. In design, all empathy really means zooming out of your own perspective for a moment and saying: “Sure, I think this is really cool, but I’m not the one who has this problem.” Or “I’m just one person who has this problem. And there’s an entire community of people that are experiencing this problem alongside me. Do they agree with me? Do they have additional thoughts and feelings?”
I think that empathy is so central because it’s not only about saying “I’m going to put forth a solution,” but saying, “I’m going to put forth a solution, and if it’s not the right solution, then I’m going to understand that, and I’m going to change it, even if that challenges my understanding of this problem.”
I trust someone else’s lived expertise over mine and I believe them. And I want to help them make things better for themselves. And if they’re telling me that something won’t work for them, then I’m going to trust that, and we’re going to go back to the drawing board. Navigating empathy is about weighing all different perspectives, not just your own.
What role do visuals play in fostering innovation?
Visual design is all about communication. I’ve seen programs for graphic design and visual design called “communication design.” I think that that’s great terminology because you’re ultimately trying to communicate something with visual design, be it a feeling or information.
At Do Tank, we rely heavily on visual design, and I think that it’s integral to this work. People can deliver information in many ways, and everyone takes in information differently. Using strong visual design is another level of thoughtful human-centered delivery.
What do you say to the argument that “healthcare is messy enough already,” innovation adds to that fire?
I think that innovation in the healthcare space is taking the mess and building something out of it. It is messy and I don’t think it gets better if we stay stagnant.
What superpowers do you bring to the team?
Being disabled, I have a particular perspective on healthcare and design that I believe is valuable. It certainly changes how I approach other people. I know I have my own perspective and it can be very hard to communicate that to somebody else; I always assume that others do as well. The rewarding part of this work is getting to understand other perspectives and incorporate them into the design process.
Describe your role in two words.
Challenging assumptions.
Ready to work with Alex on your next project? Reach out at dotankdo.com or on Linkedin!
