Parkinson’s Connect

Parkinson’s UK

Parkinson’s UK is the largest organisation supporting and advocating for people living with Parkinson’s and their loved ones in the UK. Historically they have been delivering services face to face and via helpline. Facing a society trend with raising numbers of people being diagnosed, the aim was to increase the number of people that connect with Parkinson’s UK and get support.

Parkinson’s is an ever progressing condition and affects people differently. People’s needs are based around live events, that are repeating over time such as „Changing lifestyle“ and „accessing professional care“. We looked at a more personalised information offer that would help people dealing with this moments and finding ways to support themselves better in the future.

Design around life events

New service model around need and agency

The level of need and agency differentiates people from the way they access support and information. Lots of factors contribute to low or high need or agency. We designed and tested a service model that considers those factors across the spectrum of „selfserve“, „community“ and „face to face“ support and information.

We met our participants in their homes and used a card-sorting exercise to prioritise and sequence needs and expectations.
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The process

  • Mapping of the experience from the moment of dealing with first symptoms

  • 75 interviews during discovery with people with Parkinson’s and relatives

  • Including users from across the UK, in-person or remotely

  • Setting up and running different research techniques, such as interviews, ethnographic research, mapping exercises, card sorting prioritisation etc.

  • Testing early assumptions around needs using paper prototypes

  • Running ideation workshops with service teams

  • Designing prototypes and testing ideas

  • Developing a blueprint for the service on when and how to offer support

Discovery

  • Facilitating prioritisation exercise for the service to focus on main service innovations

  • Developing testing plan for each work stream

  • Developing prototypes and experiments to test assumptions

  • Analyise outcomes of user testing and iterate solutions

  • Developing user storyboards to illustrate how the service model adjusts around people’s need and agency

Alpha

  • Developing a service design approach for the digital transformation team in-house at Parkinson’s UK

  • Supporting team in a learning by doing approach. Gradually raising confidence of the team members to take on service design tasks from initially watching in action to take on leading activities

  • After the team members got confident in user research and service design practice: Guiding teams during Alpha and providing steer and feedback to strategy and delivery

  • 1:1 mentoring and support around specific roles and tasks

  • Learning workshops and in-person, providing theoretic background alongside the practical experience in the project

  • Learning sessions around key topics of service design and user research, such as user research interviews, journey mapping, and prototyping

Capability building

"Anne guided and supported us through one year working together and she helped our digital transformation team to work in a service design approach. This has been one of the most important pieces of work for Parkinson's UK, which completely changed the way we provide tailored and personalised support for people with Parkinson's and their loved ones."

Digital Transformation team

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