User Experience Design: A COVID Case Study
The word “user” has always sounded impersonal to me. We will often internally refer to it as Human Experience Design as we try and remember that these are actual people using the product, with their own individual histories, preferences and idiosyncrasies. Many software design best practices are based on assumptions and contingencies. For example, we might ask “Well, what if they don’t know what this button does?” and the solution might be using an intuitive color, adding a more descriptive label, or an instructive tool tip that pops up the first time that the screen is viewed. Of course, it is impossible to plan for every “what if,” so we call the least likely ones “edge cases” and usually disregard any complex solutions for handling them.
In a healthy dose of irony, I found that quite often, more work goes into planning a good software experience than a good life experience. This is usually for the simple reason that creating contingency plans for the usability of an app is a lot less scary than imagining the reality of things going really sideways when out in the actual world. Consider the concept of a living will and life insurance. This contingency plan for protecting the ones you love from additional distress in the event of your early demise makes complete sense. However, the required framing of “if I were to unexpectedly die…” is objectively unpleasant and scary, so millions of people simply will not do it. To go further down the road of irony and the silly comparisons of life to software architecture, a lot of emotional stress and suffering is created from having too many “background processes.” Life is inherently filled with uncertainty and our brains love latching onto all of those “what ifs” without ever really resolving any of them. We are often not conscious of this process, but it can still be stressful and draining, like a background mental static. It is a bit similar to being in an area with no cell signal, but your phone continues looking for one, taxing the CPU and radio, and you might note how much more quickly this looping background process depletes the battery.
COVID-19 has been a massive battery drain on everybody. It is a giant collection of uncertainties that impact billions of people's lives in countless ways. Has it been politicized? Sure. Is the science around testing, symptoms, and reinfection still murky? Absolutely. But the numbers that we know about paint a pretty clear picture of reality. To put things in perspective, when we first decided to write about this as a company back in the middle of March, there were 2,100 infections in the US and everyone watched in horror as the death toll unfolded in Italy. That was before New York City. As of this writing, we have 3,165,733 cases in the US with 130,824 deaths. Yesterday, Florida reported 15,300 new cases in a single day. Aside from Brazil and India, that is more than the new case count of any other entire country - in just one state! Back in March, I did not know anybody who had contracted it whereas now I know quite a few, and I’m sure many of you would say the same. I also know people who have been incredibly careful with exposure, yet have come down with non-COVID colds and flus, illustrating how easy these microscopic assailants are to transmit. To say the least, it is incredibly frustrating to fight an invisible enemy.
The risk of contracting COVID-19 is no longer an edge case. Like most of the other pandemic news, the upcoming development of an effective vaccine from any country is also hard to pin down. Herd immunity? Not a great strategy in Sweden and as a nation, we are nowhere near a turning point for getting a handle on transmission. So what can we do aside from following common-sense guidelines? Inner work. We can work on removing some of that background static. The endless what-ifs. The perpetual fear and distraction that drains our personal batteries. The following exercise is simply the formulation of a contingency plan with the intention of getting answers to some of the emotionally taxing questions that are floating around in most of our heads. Another way of putting it is “hoping for the best, but planing for the worst.” For the purpose of this exercise, the “best” being avoiding contraction altogether, and the “worst” shall be getting sick and recovering. We’ve all heard a wide variety of infection experiences that range from those who never knew they had it, to being intubated 48 hours after developing symptoms. The best statistically significant data we have demonstrates that if you are in good health and under 60, you will likely be in for a rough two weeks followed by two more weeks of feeling crappy in isolation. Again, it could be much better, or it could be much worse, but this assumption will serve as a framework to start with that you can personalize.
So let’s just assume that at some point, you are going to go dark for a month. What does that look like? These questions and answers will be different for everyone and getting to what will serve you best will require introspection that ranges from the annoying inconveniences to the things you may be truly terrified of. These are the questions that I am currently asking myself:
Venue: Where will I recover? What is the best place in my home that will reduce the exposure to other people living there and give me the most peaceful environment to rest and recover? Is there an alternative location I can go to if infecting others is a risk? What would I need to get that all ready (scheduling, bedding, supplies, HVAC, etc)?
Nutrition: What is my plan for helping support my immune system during recovery with nutritionally dense food during my recovery? Foods, sources, procurement, preperation, delivery, etc.
Medication: What are the most helpful medications for this illness to have on hand and ready to go?
Care Framework and Monitoring: Is there someone that can regularly check in on me? How will that take place? What are the guidelines for what I need to eat and drink every day at a minimum? Do I have the tools required to keep an eye on my vitals such as respiratory rate, temperature and oxygen saturation?
Supplementation: What are the best immune-boosting and supportive vitamins and supplement to have on hand during my recovery?
Childcare: What help can I line up and have ready to go if I am out of action for a month?
Work: Are all my active projects ready to hand off to another resource in the event that I cannot work for a month? Would there be any disruption to in cashflow or otherwise that I could plan ahead for?
Entertainment: There won’t likely be much work that gets done during this time, and the more I can relax, the faster I’ll recover. Are there movies that I’ve been wanting to watch? Books I’ve wanted to read? Nice to get have a little list together to reference during recovery.
Best Practices: Is there any emerging information I can use to help my recovery? For example, I always thought it was best to be propped upright when dealign with bronchial congestion, but a friend said that while infected, it was very important to spend most of this time lying flat on his stomach to help clear his lungs.
Emotional Health: Is there a mindfulness practice I can follow while ill (or even better start now), people to regularly connect with, and other things I can think of to stay emotionally healthy during this month?
Random Dependencies: Are there any other things that I can think of which may require my attention and be stressful during a time when I should be resting and recovering?
Escalation: What if things got worse before they get better? Is my insurance all sorted? Where will I go if needing treatment? What is the current ICU situation near me look like?
It almost sounds like preparing for the worst month-long vacation ever, right? If you have ever had a bad flu, you know that a miserably high fever is no time to make involved plans. Or as my father used to remind me while I tried to remedy preventable mishaps in the midst of the unfolding turmoil: “Nobody is interested in fixing the roof when it isn't raining outside.” This Human Experience exercise of working through a contingency plan may be applied to anything in your life. The goal is to be more present for what is happening in front of you now, and less consumed by the fear of what might happen tomorrow. What keeps you up at night? Realistically run through what it would look like if your worst fears played out. You’ll be surprised to find out that it often isn’t as bad as your brain has made it out to be, and hopefully this exercise makes more mental room for all there is to be grateful for. When that ruminating fear crops up in your mind again, you can greet it with a “Yeah, I’ve thought about the reality of that and I have a plan for it, so for now I am going to let it go.”
As a final note, we are in no way advocating irresponsible behavior. We highly encourage everyone to participate in protecting those who are most vulnerable by doing the few things we know to be helpful such as wearing a mask, social distancing, and continued testing. After fulfilling that, everyone will have to decide upon their own tolerance for risk as it is juxtaposed against their livelihood and quality of life.
Wishing everybody lots of gratitude, health, and less fear.
- Elijah Szasz & Eric Colbert
