Design Interventions as Multiple Becomings of Healthcare

Abstract

Research on design of IT traditionally treats the scientific knowledge production and the design of new systems as related, but separate processes. We propose the fruitfulness of practicing a closer relation informed by interventionist design research (appreciating a problem through attempts at solving it) and actor network theory (reality is enacted and constructed through our engagement with it). Through three concrete design interventions with cardiatric healthcare, we illustrate how diverse agendas of sociological inquiry and practical design considerations can coexist and come to enact health care in specific ways. We suggest this as a strategy of multiple becomings, wherein assemblies of patients, health professionals, diseases, information technology, prototypes, and design researchers together perform shifts between promoting new practical design solutions and raising novel questions on the socio-material complexities of healthcare.