Applying Interdisciplinary Research in Design
HGA’s Design Insight Group gathers and leverages data in the design process
By Justin R. Wolf | May 16, 2024
The Walker Art Center worked with HGA’s Design Insight Group on a data-driven study to learn more about visitors’ museum experience. Photo by Paul Crosby.
FEATURE
An art museum is more than just a place that displays artworks. A hospital is more than a large building where people receive medical care. Designing or optimizing a museum or healthcare environment requires a nuanced understanding of user needs and of how people navigate and interact in these spaces. Institutions and enterprises want their visitors to feel welcomed and to have an intuitive sense of how to move about, their staff to be equipped for success, and their facilities to operate efficiently. But a thorough understanding of these needs and dynamics is a tall task for many organizations.
To support its design teams and clients in these endeavors, HGA has built up an in-house, interdisciplinary research group with backgrounds in anthropology, architecture, engineering, data science, evidence-based research, innovation methodologies, and process improvement. The Design Insight Group (DIG), as it’s called, conducts studies and compiles and analyzes vast datasets for clients in a range of markets. Its findings are used to inform design solutions. Stated more plainly, DIG’s purpose is to help clients know themselves and the people they serve better.
Using Data to Design for Change
A recent example of DIG’s work is a mixed-use research study the group conducted with the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The Walker wanted to develop a clearer understanding of how its guests—especially first-time visitors—experience the museum space. DIG partnered with the Walker to design a data-driven study in which arriving guests who agreed to participate (152 total) received a pared-down smartphone to record their thoughts, emotions, and expectations as they walked through the building. A questionnaire accompanying the audio diary invited guests to respond to prompts in real time including: “Say when you are feeling comfortable or uncomfortable” and “Why did you choose the path you did?” An app tracked each participant’s movements, and an online survey at the end of the visit captured reflections on the museum experience.
Photo 1: Participants in the study. Courtesy of the Walker Art Center. Photo by Galen Fletcher. Visuals 2–4: Tools and comments from the study. Visuals by HGA. Photos 5–9: Walker Art Center exteriors and entry pavilion interiors. Photos by Paul Crosby.
The real-time guest feedback with geolocation data essentially heat-mapped where people went, how much time they spent in each space, and how they instinctively navigated the larger campus. Perhaps most important, the study provided the Walker with not only the who, what, and where but also the why. Recommendations stemming from the findings included redesigning the visitor map to focus more on pathways than floor plans; highlighting a variety of suggested pathways based on visitor interests and needs; integrating sensory considerations into an accessibility audit; and adjusting the deployment of staff and volunteers as needed.
“We engage with people and through that engagement find a deeper way of understanding the visitor experience,” says DIG operations leader Paul Stefanski. “We look at people, process, space, and technology—a complete ecosystem of buildings and how they function.”
Big Data and Thick Data
The Design Insight Group traffics in two types of data: quantitative and qualitative. These two kinds of data produce “different types of insights at varying scales and depths, and both work together,” says HGA senior design anthropologist Ada Mestad. In the Walker Art Center study, the quantitative data—also known as “big data”—was generated via visitor location tracking using Situm, an indoor positioning and mapping app. The location tracking was then coupled with the museum’s own institutional data to develop a broader understanding of how people navigated and where they spent their time and for how long. Big data isolate variables to identify patterns at a coarse resolution, like knowing how many calories are in your meal but not the exact ingredients.
The key to the work is getting to know the client’s value system “and then tailoring the use of data to that system. That took us a little while to learn.”
The qualitative data—or “thick data”—were gathered from the remote ethnography audio diaries. Thick data reveal the human context, allowing researchers to understand social dynamics, perspectives, and representation. They can spark discussions about how design changes might foster a sense of inclusion and confidence. The questionnaire also played a key role in the feedback, lending further context to how the datasets are interrelated.
Amy Douma, AIA, an HGA design principal specializing in healthcare, says the key to the work is getting to know the client’s value system “and then tailoring the use of data to that system. That took us a little while to learn.” The process needs to be malleable, she says, because no two clients are alike, even among those operating in the same market. “All markets can utilize this,” says Douma, noting that many organizations lack the data they need to operate efficiently. “But the definitions of return on investment differ across industries.”
A Data-Driven Industry
DIG’s services have drawn particular interest from healthcare clients. “The healthcare industry has embraced this approach because clinicians and administrators are so data driven and evidence based in their decision making,” says Stefanski.
Images 1–5: A new surgical and critical care tower at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis will knit three existing care centers together into one cohesive destination. DIG conducted interviews, focus groups, and surveys to identify design drivers for the experience sought by patients and their loved ones. Renderings by HGA.
Last year, Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis’s Midtown Phillips neighborhood broke ground on a new 10-story, 550,000-square-foot surgical and critical care facility with 192 beds and 52 interventional suites. Designed by HGA, the expansion will be accompanied by renovations to 200,000 square feet of existing space. In the predesign phase, launched in 2021, DIG was charged with identifying the client’s operational and cultural strengths and working with a task force assembled by Allina Health to develop guiding principles and design drivers for a human-centered design experience. The latter work was shaped by qualitative data—interviews, focus groups, and surveys conducted by DIG.
“Abbott Northwestern staff and the design team participated in design-thinking workshops to develop socio-spatial design solutions,” says HGA healthcare principal Jennifer Klund, AIA. “The group prioritized the most impactful design ideas, which were then championed throughout the new bed tower design process. The result was a facility design that supports holistic, family-centric care and staff and community well-being.”
DIG also assisted Abbott Northwestern in parsing reams of institutional big data to shed a light on usage patterns and ways to optimize the flows of patients, staff, and equipment. In addition, the group conducted two studies designed to inform decisions on the spatial organization of the surgery department and on food service protocols, trash removal, and the transporting of clean and soiled linens.
The first study outlined two approaches to the layout of the surgery department in the context of space constraints. One placed the entire department on one floor, and the other divided it into two floors. DIG analyzed Abbott Northwestern’s surgical procedures and processes to understand and illustrate the implications of the decision for the patient experience, the colocation and movement of teams, access to support services and supplies, and space efficiency. Equipped with a thorough evaluation, the client chose the two-floor design.
“This was a rigorous analysis of ‘split or not split’ that considered economies of scale in operations, wayfinding, travel distance, and patient safety,” says HGA’s Brent Peterson, a DIG strategic programmer and lean process engineer. “It resulted in a programmatically balanced two-floor OR and interventional suite solution that the client could push forward with confidence.”
The second study examined Abbott Northwestern’s processes for manually transporting various items across the campus, then compared those costs to investment in transport via automated mobile robots (AMRs) or large pneumatic tubes. The latter technology can be an attractive option for delivering soiled linens, recyclables, and waste to a loading dock, especially for healthcare organizations facing rising costs and staffing challenges.
For healthcare providers striving to combine excellence in patient care with highly efficient operations, space and process optimization is essential. “Frequently, health-system leaders assume that they need more space, but our design teams and DIG experts often solve their problems simply by using their existing space more effectively,” says Douma.
Of course, the drive to optimize both new and existing spaces is not unique to the healthcare industry. “We’re looking forward to engaging with an expanding range of clients and project types,” says Stefanski, “because we believe in the positive impact that research-driven design and innovation can have on our communities.”
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