Background

In late 2019/early 2020, the Coronavirus started to spread in Sweden and globally. At the end of March World Design Organization (WDO) together with IBM and Design for America reached out to the global design community to participate in a Covid-19 challenge. Together in a design sprint, we tried to find solutions for the most urgent challenges following the COVID-19 outbreak. We started out as a bigger group of designers from Europe and Africa, and were later parted into smaller groups with different focus areas.

Challenge

Our challenge was to design solutions that gave support to vulnerable groups in the pandemic, in this case: people working for the public in essential industries. Our team, consisting of us and a Milano based designer, decided to focus on people working in healthcare. After interviewing people working in the Swedish healthcare system we decided to create a solution to meet the identified need for a system that effectivizes and manages workload and resources.

Process

A two-week design sprint facilitated by IBM Europe. The sprint consisted of desk research, interviews with potential users, ideation, and finally designing a prototype of the solution.

Outcome

A prototype of a system designed to support managers to effectivize the staff management, and help employees gain control over their schedule and cope with urgent recruitment in the uncertainty of the pandemic.