Med+ Studio

Med+ Studio works through a process of intensive iterative prototyping and testing, in collaboration with a co-designer with a disability, health challenge or professional experience in the health sector. Students are required to find and respond to a relevant problem space on many levels including interactivity, human factors and experience.

Last year, Med+ was co-taught by Sarah Hay and Eugenia Bertulis with 3rd year interaction design students. The hybrid studio approach broadened the possibilities for project selection as well as opened up opportunities to cross pollinate and collaborate across boundaries of ID and IxD, which is especially relevant in the health design space. The two sections will be working closely again this semester.

Med+ is uniquely outward facing to local health / design communities and individuals, which affords professional development and community practice components to the learning objectives and outcomes. For example, students are expected to find and consult with advisors and technical experts about their design directions throughout their major project’s duration.

Throughout the semester, we invite guests to our studio space to share perspectives and experience on topics such as service design, design for inclusion, iterative product design and prototyping. As well, we bring in guests from health and design fields (i.e. MEC, GF Strong, Woke Design, BCIT and UBC Engineering) for each major crit to offer feedback from their relevant and diverse professional experience.

For the past couple of years, we have had the opportunity to host the HxD meetup group on campus to present and showcase our final projects. Hopefully we will do this again here at our new campus.

TUMBLR > https://emilymedplus.tumblr.com/