You had to be there...
The first thing that stands out as I turn into the hospital grounds is an enormous sandstone structure bearing the words ‘Parramatta Female Factory’. Around the next corner I bump into the words ‘Lunatic Asylum’ and ‘Hospital for the Insane’ on a well-preserved old sign. I want to stop for a closer look, but I’m already cutting it fine to get to the workshop.
As I walk with my client to our meeting rooms in the bright morning sunshine, the buildings and spaces scattered across this 175 year-old mental health facility sigh and whisper in the warm breeze. Their labels advertise modern healthcare, caring and inclusive, but their structures are heavy with a different history. This has not only been a hospital and refuge, but also a place of forced assignment to service a growing colony, a location to request a wife, and a place of secondary punishment for convicted criminals.
Over walls and through windows - can you see it?
This location is not just a page in a history book - it’s a continuing site of practice. When patients and staff come here, they pass through these spaces and interact with them, consciously or otherwise. As a visitor on a sunny day I see beautiful old stone and tangled threads of history, but what do others see? How does a teenage patient feel on the way to their first appointment as they pass an unusually high wall or a dusty building with tiny, dark windows? Would they prefer a modern clinic, a café, a park, perhaps? If they must come here, what might make the experience less intimidating?
It’s easy to forget about place when we carry out so much of our study, work and leisure online. We see data points and digital footprints of students, patients, or colleagues, snippets of conversation in text boxes and brief sentences expressing satisfaction or frustration. Like shadows, they’re an outline that tells us approximately what’s there, but with little depth or detail. If we really want to design better systems and experiences, we have to see the people and places behind the shadows.
A full sensory insights experience
Have you ever tried to describe an experience to someone, only for them to nod vaguely or tell you about their own experience instead? Showing a picture or video can help, but for real impact and insight nothing beats an on-the-ground experience.
Site visits, in-home interviews and ethnography used to be common inclusions in market research projects. I spent the early 2000s in some unusual situations – touring a chocolate factory, watching someone wash their hair in their bathroom, doing ‘cupboard audits’ (with permission) of toiletries long-forgotten in bathroom cabinets. I have observed people browsing shelves in supermarkets and cruising stalls at a cheese festival, with follow-up ‘intercept’ questions revealing a range of surprising reasons for purchases.
Weird though it was, we all spent a lot of time in strangers’ houses (again, with permission!), getting a sense for the life and the person behind the purchase. We saw products and experiences in their full, unedited complexity, not some grainy, half-remembered picture or sanitised story. It made us excited to go back to the office and share with the team, and gave us richly detailed narratives to feed into analysis and reporting. It respected the reality and messiness of participants’ lives, surfacing unmet needs and pain points that were prompts for innovation and improvements.
Can’t picture it? Get out of wherever you are…
What do you see when you picture a student, a teacher, a patient, or anyone else who uses your services or products? Are they in a library, a classroom, a clinic, a learning platform – basically, do you see them in ‘your’ settings and systems? Or can you picture them in other places and spaces – their homes, workplaces, with family and friends? Has your research ever asked about their lives beyond your products?
Even if you do most of your research online, it’s not hard to bring a little more ‘place’ into your insights. Examples from recent student experience projects include:
These places are not separate bubbles or ‘nice to know’ information - they’re a crucial part of identity and practice, personal and professional. Places and spaces can create psychological barriers or support motivations, influencing attitudes, choices and decision-making, and if we can’t see it, we can’t design better for it.
Next time you find yourself wondering what the people who use your services might think, stop imagining and start looking, feeling, and experiencing. I’ll see you there!