Healthcare Experience Design Conference 2013

About Me

Dustin has a lifetime love affair with elegant design and nearly a decade chasing the perfect blend of form and function. Thankfully, he plays for us.

Starting his career pulling double duty as a print graphic designer and a sound designer for new media, he quickly learned that the work he created affected the actions of the audience experiencing it, and that this "silent majority" had a voice that needed to be heard and understood. Since that "Eureka!" moment, he has been blending research and design as a means to create value for both people and business.

Dustin's work has been recognized by Yahoo!, Macworld, New York Festivals and the Boston Phoenix. He has taught advanced typography and publication design at Mt. Ida's Chamberlayne School of Design and is an active member in a number of industry communities including Interaction Design Association, Design Management Institute and the Usability Professionals Association.

When not helping clients perfect their digital offerings, Dustin still enjoys twiddling the knobs of vintage synthesizers, hunting down mid-century modern design artifacts and trying to improve his skills as a photographer.

Dustin at the Conference

WORKSHOP | Monday, March 25

Systems for Self-Regulation

Persistent health related behaviors are often the result of a complex web of tightly wound conditions. As such, while people generally consider good health and well-being important, a vast majority report difficulties in obtaining the outcomes they seek. They may find it hard to initiate or maintain behaviors conducive to their well-being and may not even be aware of how their behavioral practices may help or hinder their long-term health status.

Even modest, sustained changes in people’s lifestyles would afford substantial reductions in disease morbidity and mortality, as well as reduced health care costs. Yet efforts to promote long-term behavior change effectively are constrained by our theoretical understanding of the factors that regulate people’s behavior over time.

Designers are faced with dealing with a range of challenges that individuals may encounter when trying to achieve something that is important but, almost by definition, difficult to obtain. By better understanding the factors that govern self-regulation of human behavior, we can begin to design products and services that more reliably facilitate healthy changes in behavior.

WORKSHOP | Tuesday, March 26

Beyond Gamification: Designing Behavior Change Games

Playing games is the prototypical example for an intrinsically motivating activity and motivation in healthcare is a pivotal issue. Each year, billions of dollars are spent to move our behaviors in a healthier direction to avert crisis such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other costly and painful afflictions. Leveraging the motivational dynamics of gameplay to energize and sustain people through behavior change is a challenging yet profound solution.

Participants in this hands-on workshop will learn the mechanics of clinically tested behavior change interventions as well as the techniques game designers use to motivate, engage and reward players through a game?s lifecycle. A practical, step-by-step, methodology will be introduced and built-upon throughout the day, resulting in a scalable framework and process for designing playful and practical behavior change games.

Upon completion of the workshop, participant teams will have designed (and pitched) structured behavior change games collaboratively learning how to craft game objectives that facilitatechange, proper goal-setting, optimal challenge and reward patterns, feedback loops and skills cycles, leveraging social influence and community dynamics, applying metaphor and theme, breakthrough brainstorming, game balancing andplay-testing techniques.

Health Care Design Conference - 2013 Boston

Speakers