The intersection of ethnography, design, and development: technological innovation in home-based healthcare

Abstract

This paper describes the context of home-based healthcare (HBHC) in a deprived South African community. This is done by means of ethnographic and design methodology, which was utilised to elicit a deeper understanding of the home-care context. The ethnographic aspect extracted relevant social and cultural insights with respect to this environment, whereas the design phase intended to co-develop a technological ‗solution‘ to some of the associated challenges in home-care. A foremost insight for the research team was that caregivers require ample support in their daily service or care routine. It has become clear that any solution should not only alleviate the service aspect of care, but also consider caregivers‘ emotional and social challenges. This ‗social aspect‘ is not always considered during the design of a technology solution, whereas respective service design methods certainly helped to identify and explore these. Useful, thus, is an approach whereby ethnography could create a deeper understanding of the context, and co-design could expand on this through collaboration and engagement in finding ‗solutions. Ultimately this paper, then, has the goal to provide a detailed analysis of the relationship between research, (bottom-up) design, and development in presented HBHC contexts. It is hoped that this endeavour will inform a broader framework of design thinking, action research, and development policy.