CONTEXT
Asthma affects around eight million people in the UK, yet its management is usually reduced to an inhaler and an annual review. Alva began as my MRes major project at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London: human-centred research into what living with asthma actually demands, and what lies beyond the prescription.
THE QUESTION
“How might we improve the experience of people living with asthma through design research?”
THE RESEARCH
Lived experience first.
A literature review, a social media review and an industry benchmark defined six problem domains. I explored them in semi-structured interviews with people living with asthma, which framed two design problem statements.
Co-design, then clinicians.
Participants generated solutions with me in a creative workshop, and semi-structured interviews brought in the perspective of clinicians.
Three prototypes, tested.
I turned those insights into three solution prototypes, tested them with participants and synthesised the feedback through thematic analysis.
The system around the patient.
A stakeholder map placed the solution in its wider healthcare context, the Evidence-Based Medicine framework assessed its technical readiness, and moonshot thinking with backcasting defined what it could be today and in the future.
FROM THE DISSERTATION
These extracts describe the design research process: how the question was framed, explored with people living with asthma and with clinicians, prototyped, tested and reframed into a solution.
FROM RESEARCH TO PRODUCT
The research identified needs no inhaler addresses, and became a real product: a lifestyle-based asthma management app built on breathing exercises, physical activity and nutrition, grounded in behavioural science and delivering evidence-based, personalised feedback. Its core loop is simple: record a peak-flow baseline, change one thing in your life, and see with objective data whether it made a difference, while a trigger journal maps what sets symptoms off.
WEB APP MVP · 10 SCREENS · SWIPE TO SEE MORE
THE CRAFT
Alva is the project where I became a designer in practice as well as in training. I created the complete brand, logo, visual identity and product design, and carried the same hand through every screen. It also produced a framework I still use: the Six Lenses of Healthcare Integrated Human-Centred Design, which asks whether a solution is desirable for patients and clinicians, feasible medically and technically, and viable for patients and the healthcare system.
REFLECTION
Everything since runs through Alva: the conviction that rigorous research and careful craft belong in medicine, and the proof that a clinician can carry an idea from first interview to shipped product.