Kurs People First: Design Thinking for Health Technologies

Daria Kolosovskaia MSc

Healthcare is full of complex, human problems, problems that rarely have a single right answer, and where the best solutions depend on truly understanding the people involved. A patient trying to stay active after a heart attack. A clinician juggling too many appointments. A caregiver navigating an unfamiliar system. Design Thinking is the process that makes understanding people the starting point for everything, keeping the person at the center from the very first question to the final prototype.

In this two-day workshop, you will apply Design Thinking hands-on to real challenges drawn from active research on physical activity, cardiac rehabilitation, and behavior change, guided step by step through all five phases: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test.

On Day 1, you will conduct empathy interviews, build user personas, and define a sharp problem statement,  to prepare the way to the solution.

On Day 2, you will generate ideas, build an interactive prototype using AI-assisted design tools, test it with peers, and present your results, showing how your solution addresses the needs of the people it is meant for.

What stays with you, beyond the tools and the prototype, is a structured way of thinking, one that puts people first and works for any complex problem, wherever you encounter it.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, participants will:

• Understand the Design Thinking process and be able to apply it independently
• Have practiced empathy interviews, How Might We problem framing, structured ideation, and user testing
• Have built and tested an interactive prototype
• Have a reusable methodology for approaching complex problems, in digital health and beyond

Open to all — no background in healthcare, design, or technology required. Let’s innovate by working together!