fastcodesign.com | BY Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan

 Though scientific knowledge of blood and hematology has increased exponentially since the first blood banks opened at the turn of the century, the donor experience of giving blood hasn’t changed all that much since the 1950s. Sit down, feel a pinch, grab your reward cookie, and bounce.

Yet as the Boomer population ages and blood demand rises, many in the medical community are wondering whether blood donation needs a serious rebrand. For example, only 4% of eligible donors in the U.K. donate, says Ama Darko Williams, a student at the Royal College of Art. “With a growing and aging population, it’s crucial to attract more donors," she adds. As part of an Innovation Design Engineering course, Williams and her teammates, James Wright, Dan McLaughlin, and Zhanling Feng, set out to reimagine the blood donation earlier this year. The foursome culled insight from nurses, first-time and regular donors, blood specialists, public health experts, and transfusion recipients, all in the hopes of gleaning a small insight into how to improve the experience for everyone involved.

What they found was that there wasn’t one specific aspect of the blood donor program that needed to change. Rather, each individual component needed to be looked at to repair the overall system--not unlike a circulatory system. As a result, their final project, Haemobility, comes in the form of three interventions at different scales, a holistic kit of products aimed at helping the major stakeholders. Read More...