Dr. Deana McDonagh, Professor and founder of the (dis)Ability Design Studio, Beckman Institute of Advanced Science and Technology
What if we could harness everyday surroundings, such as our homes and workplaces, to actively monitor and improve wellbeing? Dr. Deana McDonagh, Professor and founder of the (dis)Ability Design Studio at the Beckman Institute of Advanced Science and Technology, envisions a future that includes personalized medication and nutrition in wellness-centered home environments. Her work focuses on evolving the notion of "disability" and instead emphasizes designing for diverse abilities. As a visionary industrial designer, she shares the importance of experiential learning to cultivate empathy in creating a more inclusive and emotionally sustainable future.
Dr. Deana McDonagh is Professor of Industrial Design in the School of Art and Design, Health Innovation Professor in the Carle College of Medicine at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and founder of the (dis)Ability Design Studio at the Beckman Institute of Advanced Science and Technology. The Studio is based on the principle of designed 'by' rather than designed 'for' model which embraces people living with disabilities as contributors to knowledge rather than research subjects. She is an Empathic Design Research Strategist who focuses on enhancing quality of life for all through more intuitive and meaningful products, leading to emotional sustainability. She concentrates on the emotional user-product relationships and how empathy can bring the designer closer to users’ authentic needs, ensuring both functional and emotional needs are met by products.
Show Notes
Dr. Deana McDonagh shares her background as an industrial designer focused on empathy to enhance our understanding of other people’s needs. [3:10]
Her journey to implementing empathy into her design work. [4:20]
A view of future wellness that includes innovative products and features in our homes. [5:31]
How can our clothing contribute to wellness in the future? [08:46]
How do we design for ability instead of disability? [10:13]
Innovative, holistic product design that will disrupt the industry. [12:40]
Designing services, environments and products that actually build in emotional sustainability. [16:37]
What is emotional sustainability? [19:30]
How can we integrate this beauty in design for those who are marginalized or underserved? [23:21]
What does the future home look like? [24:36]
How can people experience the notion of kindness and empathy? [28:36]
Transcript
Bisi Williams 00:00
Hi. I'm Bisi Williams, you're listening to Health2049.
Deana McDonagh 00:09
It's about kindness. It's about empathy. And it's about acknowledging that in this moment, we may be able-bodied, but all that can change in a moment. That sensitivity to the human condition. And not only looking at the needs of today, but looking at needs of tomorrow means that we're going to be designing services, environments and products that actually build in emotional sustainability. So people feel like these objects, services and environments are actually designed for them in 2049, not just in 2023
Bisi Williams 01:50
The human body is a complex system. It has numerous inputs and outputs, and most of the body's mechanics and wiring are invisible. What if we could make the invisible visible? What if we could use our passive environments like our homes and workplaces to actively measure our well being? My guest today is an empathic design research strategist who focuses on enhancing quality of life for all through more intuitive and meaningful products. Dr. Deana McDonagh is the founder of the disability design studio at the Beckman Institute of Advanced Science and Technology. She's professor of Industrial Design in the School of Art and Design. She's also Health Innovation Professor in the Carl College of Medicine at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, Dr. Deana McDonagh, welcome to Health 2049.
Deana McDonagh 02:59
Thank you, I'm so excited to be part of this.
Bisi Williams 03:03
We're excited to have you on the show. Would you please share with our listeners a little bit about your fascinating background?
Deana McDonagh 03:10
Well, I am an industrial designer and my area is empathy, empathy as a portal to more enhanced understanding of others. If we focus only on the functional side of people's needs, then we're really missing emotional connections and so I am truly a professional optimist. I'm always looking for those disconnects from what should be to what is experienced and the bridge I found between the concrete lived experience of all those things that can be measured and the things that can't be measured. The bridge really is empathy.
Bisi Williams 03:56
I think that's the most important thing. And what I love about what you do is you connect the dots. It's not just a function. It's also beauty, delight and joy, which I think is also superduper important to living and designing our lives. So how did you become an empath, if you will, about your design work?
Deana McDonagh 04:20
Well, I am an industrial designer, and numerically the field is male dominated. I realized the products, everything that surrounds us tends to be designed not for anyone like me. Then I was focusing on the female voice in design. And then I realized, well, firstly, there is no average person in the world, from a human factors point of view. Nobody has an anthropometric standard body size. What's more important is that the females in the Northern Hemisphere tend to be the majority but when our voice isn't heard, it's a fact that we are less likely to survive a plane crash, a car crash or train crash, because the material landscape is not designed for people like us.
Bisi Williams 05:19
I think that's fascinating. We can talk a little bit more about that. But what I'd love to hear and I know what our listeners are excited to learn is, what is your vision for health and wellness in the year 2049.
Deana McDonagh 05:31
So 2049 is an exciting time. Because we have transitioned from blaming everybody else about our physical challenges to being proactive, we have a health service that is all about preventative care. It's about motivating the individual rather than punishing the individual. It's about not just focusing on mobility, but focusing on wellness, joy, sense of belonging. And so let's talk about the whole. Let's talk about the fridge, the refrigerator now has a shelf, dedicated to skincare, dedicated to lotions and potions that may have sensors in them that actually really figure out from a dermatology point of view, how the epidermis, how healthy it is. Also, the fridge is really controlled for your medication. And the medication is actually bespoke, imagine 3D printing, imagine now we 3D print our medication, because you get a prescription that was years ago, and your body has changed, the chemistry has changed, the season has changed. But has the medication changed? The food that you eat can be 3D printed, that can be enhanced with certain nutrients and vitamins that the whole system in your home is saying you have a deficit or surplus of. And then we move to the final frontier, which is the bathroom. I could talk about the bathroom for months on end. I don't know if it's because I'm European, well I was European when I left the UK. I'm not sure if I'm called European now. But what fascinates me is that we flush away critical data every morning in urine and feces. Stop me Bisi if I'm talking too much about this.
Bisi Williams 07:53
No, no, it's not too much TMI.
Deana McDonagh 07:55
So I am looking at toilet paper that has sensors in it. So it can detect blood. I do bring toilet paper from the UK that has moisturizers in it and is scented. So the experience is joyful. But also we can build in technology. Imagine you step into the shower, the shower measures you and keeps an eye on your weight, it captures any of the skin and hair samples that fall off in the process of your shower. And also imagine sensors, I don't want to say cameras because that will freak people out. But if you live alone, and you can't see your back, how do you know if you've got a dermatology issue developing?
Bisi Williams 08:42
I love that and tell us more about the clothes.
Deana McDonagh 08:46
So it's 2049 you put your clothes on, the clothes repel mosquitoes, they repel bees, whatever you're hypersensitive to and clothing can have actuators in them that can help with mobility, like imagine exoskeletons, but they're so subtle and refined. Also, your clothing can have slow release medication. I mean, again, I think we're going to be more nomadic in the future. And so your clothing, the bathroom, your medication, all of that has to be really, really tailor made. And I don't want to focus on living longer. I want us to focus on a total commitment to prevention in a very organic way. So we don't become uber obsessed, so it gets in the way of us living our lives. But I think the clothing, the bathroom, our home environment is going to be the epicenter of wellness going forward.
Bisi Williams 09:56
It sounds divine. I love it. I'm down for all of that, especially if it's beautiful and it's fit for purpose. And so why are you so confident that your idea and vision can be achieved within 30 years?
Deana McDonagh 10:13
Well, I am always forward looking, I'm immersed in the disconnect of the here and now. And as an industrial designer, I'm always looking to cross pollinate, to bring people together that have never even considered looking that far into the future. My space here at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology is really the epicenter of interdisciplinarity here at the University of Illinois, where it brings in sciences, medical experts, and engineering. From last November, I founded the Disability Design Studio, and so on the disability, the dis in disability is in brackets, because I want to get rid of deaths, I want us to only design for ability. And that ability may be dynamic and ever changing. But if we focus on death, then we're always putting down people that may look and sound and behave differently to us. So what makes me optimistic is that I am passionate about products, services and environments being designed by people who are diverse in their abilities, rather than the privileged few designing for them. And here at the Beckman, I'm shifting the culture from people with disabilities as research subjects, to people with disabilities as being contributors of knowledge and that is a portal to innovation.
Bisi Williams 12:02
1,000,000% I have goosebumps all over my body, I can't tell you how excited I am about that, just those three words, erasing them from our vocabulary. And looking at the dynamic range of human experience and designing for it. I really think that you're on the forefront of this, looking at it holistically. This is so exciting. And so would you please share some examples of the products that you've designed and that your future designing, if you imagine for 2049.
Deana McDonagh 12:40
So we are designing the wheelchair of the future. It is a bowl bot, imagine a bowling ball with lots of systems that it's omni directional, it's hands free. It's a smaller footprint than any existing wheelchair on the market. And it's designed by coach Adam Blakeney, who is the USA Para Olympic coach for track and field. And we're partnering with phenomenal engineering colleagues and this is his vision. He's a wheelchair user, and we're instilling empathic design, human-focused and that's just one of the projects. This really is going to be hugely disruptive going forward. The other thing that we're finishing off right now, and I don't know if any of you have experience of traveling with a wheelchair user, but they're often first on the plane, their chair is taken away from them. Imagine you're on the tarmac, there's delay, they desperately need to use the restroom. They have to crawl to the restroom. So it's inhumane. It strips them of dignity. And if any of you have been on a train, a coach or a plane toilet, the last thing you want to do is crawl on that floor. So what we're designing, and it's been designed by coach Adam and two industrial design undergrads that are both wheelchair users. We are designing a personal, it's a mobile chair that they can take on with them. So if they need to move around, they have dignity. It's a flat pack, it opens up when you need it. And it is literally designed by them and there are other things. So I'm dealing with medical students and I'm working with the pediatric ward. And so I bring medical students into my design studio. We talk about disconnects and you have a different kind of conversation. When they're in a design studio, that's playful. That's got a decal all over the wall. I mean, it's playful. And also, I think you'll love this. If you want to come and have a conversation with me. The conference table is surrounded by assistive technologies, you have to sit in a wheelchair to have a conversation with me.
Bisi Williams 15:41
Wow, okay, you're just blowing my socks off. I can't tell you how informative you are. What a revolution I had no idea and I don't think our listeners did either. In terms of what people who use different mobility tools have to go through is staggering to me, and I can't wait for your chair to be on the market, so that they can move freely about the plane or the train. That's just unbelievable. And so awesome. I'm so inspired. You're just getting started. So why is your vision and idea so important? And how will you make the world a better place for everybody?
Deana McDonagh 16:37
It starts with the understanding of the importance of kindness. So I teach the medical students, just to give a couple more seconds of looking in the parents eyes that have a sick child. I ask them to think about how they can bring joy into any of the interventions they're going to introduce into the pediatric ward. It's about kindness. It's about empathy. And it's about acknowledging that in this moment, we may be able-bodied, but all that can change in a moment, you slip on the stairs like I did a few years ago, and three operations later, I was determined to sleep in my own bed, I was crawling up and down the stairs. I was living my research and that was humbling. I thought I was humble enough, but apparently not. But I do believe that people that have a different lived experience and that could be as temporary as a migraine, or super stress or loss of a job where your whole identity is turned upside down, that sensitivity to the human condition and not only looking at the needs of today, but looking at needs of tomorrow. And the unforeseeable needs means that we're going to be designing services, environments and products that actually build in emotional sustainability. So people feel like these objects, services and environments are actually designed for them in 2049, not just in 2023.
Bisi Williams 18:45
Can you say that, again, I think that's super important that you actually have an emotional attachment that you value the objects in your life, for work, and play and rest. I think in the design field, we forget about that. We need to think long term. When you think about a tool that gets you from A to B or like when I think about a laptop, things that enable you to live with purpose and dignity. Can you talk a little bit more about the longevity of those, but also the joy in there. I think that those are important design concepts.
Deana McDonagh 19:30
Well, they are critical. So I talk about emotional sustainability and emotional sustainability is beyond what the product is made of. So we all know bamboo products that are sustainable but some products are single use. So that to me is not sustainable. If we focus on the human needs of today, tomorrow and the unforeseeable future, then what we're doing is ensuring that the emotional connection, the person feels that this product is really serving them through the various lifespan. I look at the material landscape and there is a sociology of the living room, for example. And everything that we surround ourselves with if it's clustered together, like family photos, or if it's a taboo product, like anti dandruff, that's hidden away when family are coming. All your dirty washing is removed from the dining table, we elevate certain products, like your awards or your certificates, because we need that in our space. So think of your home as hugely symbolic. Think of textures, colors, how agile is the space? How can you move the furniture around if you have a guest or a friend coming who's a wheelchair user? Or you in the future? On a personal level, having a shower, it's sensorial it's joyful. How many people have different types of shower gels, potions and lotions, depending on, do they need to be refreshed, do they need to calm down, do they need to wash the day away or do they need to be soothed and calm? And brushing your teeth, make it fun. Why do the children have all the fun? Why not buy a toothbrush that brings you joy and toothpaste that sparks joy and is a flavor that really activates your tastebuds. And so the home environment, and where you work, and equally how you dress are all opportunities to bring joy to ensure that there's wellness being practiced in your day to day.
Bisi Williams 22:16
I just want to live in your world. That sounds amazing. I've already moved, this is fantastic. I think one of the things that is so important when we think about our future is beauty. I'd love to talk to you a little bit about this when you talk about sustainability. And yes, we are super blessed, and grateful for the resources we have and I'm curious how we marry that. And when we think in 2049, we'll be at 1 billion people. How do you imagine that we integrate this beautiful world for all of those that are maybe marginalized or underserved? And then how do you imagine we highlight this? I feel that making a wheelchair an object of beauty, it's transcendent. Those are innovations. We have art, science and technology. Can you talk a bit more about that from high scale to low scale.
Deana McDonagh 23:21
So that's a PhD question. It's maybe three pH, PhDs, but it's 2049 and so we've done the groundwork. So how does this look? I think we are obviously moving away from McMansions, we are really considering the footprint that we consume. And I think the smaller home with higher quality materials, and more of this meaningful consumerism. I think we're going to almost go back to the Old English small houses, and Hamlet's and let's imagine the Hamlet is a small community that may have a medical expert, a nurse, a doctor, some caregivers, and it's transgenerational, and objects are shared amongst the communities. We have people that are dedicated. We have to get rid of built in obsolescence.
Bisi Williams 24:34
Thank you.
Deana McDonagh 24:36
And I'll explain why this could work. Let's imagine a family of four people, parents, two children. Let's keep it simple. One of the children likes their toast a certain way, they get a modular toaster. As they leave to study or work away, maybe they start their own micro family, then the other person's micro toasters module comes together. And we've got two slots for toast. And then as they have children, it adds on. But equally, there's a modular system to everything we own. I mean, there's no reason why every house in America needs a lawn mower. I am an American, despite how I sound. Americans have an incredible sense of playfulness and the pursuit of pleasure and yet they have a garage full of toys that they do not have time to play with. I think we are moving away from home ownership as we know it. The home is going to become a wellness retreat. I treat my own home as a retreat. It's sacred. It's where I close the door on the world, but not my community, and the colors and lighting, so for example, the lighting in my studio here at the Beckman, it's the opposite of the scientific labs. There's no overhead, I have these big globes, I have cuckoo clocks that go off because some people don't have vision. So I want the passage of time to be organic. I have kinetic furniture that moves. If you come and visit me, I have those little stress relievers, those little squeegee things, that you can have a conversation with me and your nervous energy is being channeled into, do you know what I mean?
Bisi Williams 26:49
I know exactly what because I have the same things.
Deana McDonagh 26:51
So the home and living in the future, I don't think we need the choices we have in supermarkets. I think we need to scale everything down. I think food is going to be more dynamic, and rather than just consumed to fill us up, and I think the super functional is going to be what drives us, the super functional involves the emotional, the aspirational, the cultural, because the cultural imprint is really what drives our decision making. We can throw on top any rationality you fancy at the moment, but a lot of our decision making is really based on our very early experiences and that's the cultural imprint.
Bisi Williams 27:43
I love this future and how it actually seems more humane, more life centric, not just human centered, it's really taking into account all of life. And what's interesting about your scenario, is that we have more of what we need, which is connection to friends and family, to nature, to our purpose, which is also a remedy for health. And as you talk about all these preventative measures, there are things that we can do for $1.95 that really bring us to wellness. And I love the notion of kindness and empathy. And it sounds easy. Is it easy to do?
Deana McDonagh 28:36
Well, we have to acknowledge that there are some personality types, and that some people do not experience empathy or can develop empathy, in the same way as the majority of people. And then there are some people that make it very difficult for me to want to personally be empathic with on any level. And that's a challenge, but I think it starts with a smile. It starts with acknowledging, so I have an empathic gerontology suit. So for example, I can take a 20 year old, typically healthy, able-bodied student, I can layer them with so many disabilities the body cannot overcompensate. So I can give them tinnitus, simulate glaucoma or retinitis pigmentosa, and I can make all their joints relatively immobile. I can make it so they can't feel the ground so they're shuffling. I put a 40 pound weight on them. I put weights on every single ankle and wrist. I then ask them to do an activity of daily living. Not only is this onslaught of the body has now augmented their experience, they now realize how difficult everything is, any activity. What this does in 10 minutes, it transforms them, it transforms a typical able-bodied person into their future self. Or the experience of a loved one that does need more time searching for the right credit card or the right change or can't quite hear you. So what that does in the minute, it is very emotional. It takes people really deep into themselves. And through that experience, and I've done this for companies, everybody should go through this. I've done this around the world can you believe for medical experts that have never done any empathic modeling, on the very patients that they serve. Going back to this, it opens up our reservoir of empathic understanding that would not have been there unless it had been untapped. And so this sticky, experiential learning, the individual takes this into their professional life, their personal life, and they actually carry the torch and kindness, understanding and patience doesn't become a burden. It becomes part of who they are.
Bisi Williams 31:42
Deana, thank you so much for your joy, your empathy and your wisdom. It has been an absolute pleasure talking about the future of health and wellness with you.
Deana McDonagh 31:57
Oh, I think I'd give you a hug right now.
Bisi Williams 32:01
I'm giving you a hug, thank you
