10.16 Chapter take home messages

Key Takeaways:

  • Purpose and value of HCD - Human Centered Design (HCD) is a creative problem solving discipline which utilizes collaborative methods and human centered approaches to derive inspiration from the lived experience of the people, their environment, and interactions. Across Project RISE, we applied the HCD approach alongside the other two approaches of applying the Rituals Lens and the Mixed Methods Approach in three key ways; to continually focus on the user’s needs and perspectives, to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration and wide stakeholder engagement, to keep the project action oriented.

  • Phase I - Discover - To structure our understanding of ASHA dynamics we mapped out her interactions across four domains: her personal and professional role within both the community and the health system. This was based on the notion that the ASHA has different but overlapping roles - personal and professional - that cut across the community and the health system. This revealed four Opportunity Areas:

  1. ASHA’s embeddedness raises unique tensions that affect her motivation and performance.

  2. ASHAs interactions are impactful but access is missing during critical time periods.

  3. The Perinatal Journey is shaped by complex inter-connections of behaviors and motivations.

  4. ASHAs are the primary influencer for some behaviors, and only one among many for others.

  • Phase II - Define - Organization & synthesis of the collected data and insights, opportunity design drivers and HMW statements by the Scope team into thematic areas or HMW themes. Each of these HMW Themes was accompanied by preliminary ideas for that direction, and provided a different direction for the Create phase. Through a prioritization workshop the team determined the focus should be on:

  1. ‘Influencing the health outcomes by integrating biomedical knowledge and community practices.’ and

  2. ‘Revisiting the ASHA role and crafting a clear value proposition for the community, health system, and for themselves.’

  • Phase III - Create - In order to ‘create a path to future’ the team conducted remote co-design sessions to identify sustainable solutions in collaboration with end-users. The outcome of this process resulted in a number of solutions at both the strategy and intervention level. The Ritualization Strategy Framework aids in creating strategies for behavioural change which require an in-depth understanding of an intricate web of interconnected elements which include influencers, motivations, barriers and even points in time. These strategies can then be used to create specific interventions, such as the 9 concepts in section 4.4. The Future Family Tool is a timeline-based planning tool that the ASHA uses with the newlywed couple to counsel them about FP, using a storytelling format which leverages the Ritualization Mechanisms to increase ASHA efficacy. Annex - resources