Homebound

weeknotes

5 May

I know I said I wouldn't skip a weeknote but I let life get in the way again. I also don’t feature the other side of my double-life very much—the one where I study/research healthcare and design—so here's a new kind of recap ahead.

In a nutshell

Redesigned a flow that enables our users to request to make changes, including states for abandoning these changes, recalling/restoring them, and requests for either
Monthly team day in London ft. in-person retro
Finally finished my research proposal (just in time to reclaim 4 hours of a weekend)
13 hour leg for 2 weeks back *home* home aka Hong Kong ♥️

As a designer…

The last two weeks on my project have been UX heavy as we revisited screens for the next flow (due for build by Q3). It’s also awfully inconvenient as my 2-week leave clashes during a time packed with high-level design, but already I’m excited to see all 4 of 4 flows near-sign-off by the time I’m back (and in our new and shiny Figma system ✨).

I sometimes forget to appreciate how collaborative the UCD process is. Despite the overwhelming number of meetings, silo is design's worst enemy. So is virtual fatigue. We had a monthly retro in person in London last week, which saw some great ideas for things like making sign-off easier, and meetings more productive (rather than in abundance).

On a more positive note: we released our first child into public beta! As of last week, about 1237 gov employees can now dip into a digital we helped create. Hopefully this will make it easier for them to achieve their admirable 5-year ambition 🔨

… and as a student

Recently, I've been pouring a lot of energy into my research proposal for my dissertation. This is my exploration into death, and the role design can have in bettering it. We see design do a lot of good work in healthcare. The 21st century has been very good at prolonging life, but not nearly as good at helping us die.

Modern day dying is complicated, expensive, ambiguous—yet we all can't help but die—and for many deaths, this happens in a less-than-ideal way. Research also says we have pretty good grasp of ideal; the typical person wants to be pain-free, at home, not a burden for family, tend to spiritual needs, plus whenever possible, an experience described as far from clinical/medical/systemised (i.e. uncontrollable).

For months, my research has gone from discovery > hypothesis > proposal of methods to look at mortality engagement and personalisation (both in isolation). Part of this means being reflexive (not to be confused with reflective). Like the latter, but in a way that carefully acknowledges my own biases and subjectivity, aka the reason for why I research in the 'open': build a mind fortress for public scrutiny. The other part involves lots of interviews and contextual inquiry, which I can’t really go into until I get an ethics approval. So that’s next.

Human things

The days leading up to my flight home was very hectic so running took another low on the priority list. The humidity where I'm from also makes running an unnecessary challenge, so it's back on the human hamster wheel I go (except for an upcoming evening with Midnight Runners)! Here’s a growing list of unique things I love about home: