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Aus­tralian speak­ers in the Di­gital Health­care Man­age­ment mas­ter's pro­gram

28.04.2022, Study :

Two guest lectures from Western Australia's Edith Cowan University enriched the April 2022 lectures in the Digital Healthcare Management master's program. Prof. Dr. Stuart Medley, illustrator and co-founder of the Perth Comic Arts Festival, spoke on "Narrative Drawing for Service Design" and Dr. Christopher Kueh, graphic and information designer as well as design researcher and strategist, on "Complexity in the 21st Century: Exploring the Transformative Value of Technology".

Students in the Digital Healthcare Management master's program are empowered to systematically analyze future developments and successfully implement innovation projects in healthcare. The two speakers, Prof. Dr. Stuart Medley and Dr. Christopher Kueh, gave their presentations via Zoom in the subject "Innovation and Technology Management".

"Narrative Drawing for Service Design."

In his guest lecture on "Narrative Drawing for Service Design", Prof. Dr. Stuart Medley addressed the importance of narrative stories in the design of service offerings. The starting point was the realism continuum for representation and perception to move from the abstract to the concrete. He introduced the classic structure of the customer journey map from a designer's perspective. This included examples of the visual design of narrative structures in healthcare service flows. Here, Prof. Medley emphasized that the static linear narrative dissolves and transitions into multiple narrative and possibility threads, and focal points must be set in the narrative. Colors, figures, and objects, for example, serve to represent an action or contact between actors. In the course of the lecture, the students of the master program gained insight into the sophisticated graphic creation of technology-oriented process flows.

About Prof. Dr. Stuart Medley

He creates comics and visual prototypes for service design to improve work processes. He is co-founder and chairman of the Perth Comic Arts Festival. He has worked for 20 years as a professional illustrator and graphic designer for clients such as Anglicare, a leading not-for-profit organization that helps people in need with various services in many locations in Western Australia. He also teaches students at Edith Cowan University.


"Complexity in the 21st Century: Exploring the Transformative Value of Technology."

Dr. Christopher Kueh began his guest lecture on "Complexity in the 21st Century: Exploring the Transformative Value of Technology," with a time travel of the evolution of design within the last 70 years. He presented a design model for solving and transforming problems in general and for healthcare in particular, delving deeper into transformative design approaches. In the second part of his talk, he used an example to show that a technology is not always the solution to a highly complex problem. Technologies such as digital media that are used as platform offerings can make a positive contribution to solving problems, but they must also always be adapted to changing environmental conditions and circumstances. One result is that interventions in existing systems always lead to systems reconfiguring and catalyzing themselves, which in turn leads to a need for adaptation that should not be ignored at the beginning of a project.

About Dr. Christopher Kueh

He is a design researcher and design strategist currently teaching as a lecturer at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia. Trained as a graphic and information designer, he has dedicated his career to expanding and applying designers' thinking to improve businesses, organizations, and communities.

About the cooperation with the Australian Edith Cowan University

The cooperation between Edith Cowan University in Perth Australia and Neu-Ulm University of Applied Sciences has existed for about one and a half years. They are working on joint publication projects. In 2022, for example, the book "Service Design Practices for Healthcare Innovation" was published. Currently, the scientific cooperation is being deepened through joint guest lectures. In early 2023, further publications will be made in the book on the topic of "Human-Centered Service Design for Healthcare Transformation", in which master's students, doctoral students and scientists from both universities will participate. Expansion and deepening of the cooperation is planned.

Program director and advisor: Prof. Dr. Mario A. Pfannstiel

Further information on the master's program: Digital Healthcare Management (M.A.)

Source of the figure: Pfannstiel M.A. (2022) (opens enlarged image)
Source of the figure: Pfannstiel M.A. (2022)