Strategy for The Swiss Brain Health Plan
Strategy Design
6 Months
Project Details
Project Overview
In this project we worked with the The Swiss Brain Health Plan 2023-2033, a comprehensive initiative aimed at addressing the growing public health crisis posed by brain disorders. Recognizing that over 50% of Switzerland’s population is affected by neurological or psychiatric conditions, the project sought to promote brain health practices that start in early childhood.
Our focus was on empowering parents with children that have a brain condition as role models and facilitators, enabling them to integrate cognitive and physical routines into their family life. By fostering self-reflection and creating practical strategies, we aimed to help families build sustainable habits that support lifelong cognitive well-being.
Through participatory design methods, we collaborated directly with six families to Co-Create solutions, emphasizing accessibility, adaptability, and the importance of shared reflection. This project not only aligned with public health priorities but also provided a meaningful opportunity to apply design thinking to real-world challenges.
Nature of the Project
Research
Co-Design
Service Design
Strategy Design
Project Timeline
Secondary Research - 4 Week
Primary Research & Cultural Probes - 8 Weeks
Co-Design - 4 Weeks
Design Prototyping - 6 Week
Testing & Iterations - 2 Weeks
Team
Mahir Malde
Pina Eppstein
Mariia Kudin
Detailed Project Documentation
As part of the Design Management, International curriculum, third-semester students participate in the module Transforming and Humanising Organisations. This module, led by Dr. Guillermina Noël and Julia Ahlberg, DM, provides a comprehensive exploration of the intersection between design, organisational transformation, and human-centred approaches. The module was accompanied by additional guest lecturers and stakeholders who contributed with their diverse perspectives and expertise.
Running from October 1, 2024, to February 3, 2025, this module offered an intensive and enriching learning experience, encouraging students to critically engage with real-world organisational challenges while applying design methodologies to address them.
1. Secondary Research
Getting Started
Before our first class, we explored foundational readings that framed our understanding of brain health. These included the Swiss Brain Health Plan 2023–2033 by Claudio L.A. Bassetti and Chapter 1: Awareness about Brain Health by Dr. Alexandre Datta. These resources provided us with critical insights into the societal and individual importance of brain health, laying the groundwork for our project. Additionally we have read the papers Towards strengthening methods in design education and practice and Convivial toolbox: Generative research for the front end of design, which gave us important insights into the technical side of doing such a project.
SFCNS Swiss Brain Health Plan 2nd Stakeholder Meeting
The Swiss Federation of clinical neuro-societies held their second Stakeholder meeting in Berne on the 5th of December. The meeting gathered representatives from various sectors, including politics, healthcare, patient organizations, research, insurance, and industry, to emphasize the importance of maintaining good brain health throughout life. Topics addressed focused on brain health awareness, communication, policy, and social challenges.
Brain Health & Awareness
Early neurological development is crucial (P. Baeriswyl, Federal Office of Public Health), and a lack of awareness can have severe consequences (Prof. Dr. Med. R. Guzman, University Children’s Hospital Basel).
Empowerment through education, self-awareness, and advocacy is essential for better brain health outcomes (M. Rosenfeld, FRAGILE Suisse).
Role of Communication & Policy
Political priorities should focus on awareness and research rather than solely nursing care (Government representatives).
Communication significantly impacts decision-making (Prof. Dr. R. Khan, United Arab Emirates), while trust, consistency, and character are essential for raising awareness (Prof. Dr. Med. T. Mokrusch, Germany & Prof. A. Nijamanshi, Cameroon).
Lifestyle & Social Challenges
Stress and modern lifestyles present major challenges for brain health (P. Schnegg, Government Councillor).
Switzerland’s workforce structure and economic conditions increase the burden of brain health issues (I. Bègue, Psychiatrist University Geneva)
Data Gathered from Initial Research
50%
of Swiss Population and 33% of European Population is affected by Brain Disorders
320€ Billion
The economic burden is staggering, with mental diseases in Europe costing more than 320 billion euros annually, exceeding the costs of cancer and diabetes
Importance of Preventive Measures
What stood out to us was that up to 50% of strokes and 40% of dementia cases could be prevented through proactive measures, reinforcing the importance of prevention strategies.
Population Growth
The Swiss population continues to grow, partly due to migration, with a median age of 48. This aging population increases the prevalence of neurological diseases, leading to longer treatments and greater healthcare costs.
Role of a Designer
We explored how designers contribute to addressing these challenges. Their role bridges technical advancements and practical applications, making them crucial in implementing strategies like the SBHP.
Our research into SBHP implementation highlighted a three-step approach: integrating brain health practices into families, reinforcing them in schools, and evaluating long-term impact. Collaboration emerged as essential, with families at the center of a multidisciplinary system involving doctors, social workers, and psychologists.
Key insights from our research mapping included the importance of awareness-building, co-creation for tackling complex issues, and structured conversations with families to ensure gradual, sustainable changes. We also identified sleep disruptions in adolescents as a major concern, emphasizing the need for education and actionable strategies. These findings provide a strong foundation for guiding our project’s next steps.
3. Primary Research: Cultural Probes
The Design Probes, or in our specific context, Cultural Probes are a participatory method that engages the families in understanding and improving brain health practices. They are in the form of a toolkit, filled with various questions and tasks that invite the families to explore their daily routines, behaviors, and attitudes. The families were given one weekend to fill out the probes and send them back to us. These probes foster a deeper engagement and actionable insights for promoting brain health within families.
Following are the cultural probe templates created:
Thematic Analysis of Cultural probes
Findings & Circumstances that Require Change
Adaptation to Circumstances
Families face unique challenges, such as stress and environmental factors affecting sleep and eating routines. Tailored strategies for varying capacities to adopt brain health practices are key to addressing these issues effectively.
Transforming awareness into action
Families are aware of healthy brain practices but often struggle to implement them consistently. They recognize that routines and activities directly impact brain health and are open to learning how specific actions influence their lives and well-being.
Adaptation to Circumstances
Families want to adopt mindful habits by being more conscious, even for bedtime routines, healthy eating, and cognitive activities, emphasizing the need for accessible knowledge and insights to support these changes.
Findings Map
The cultural probes provided us with a lot of data, which led us to identify the circumstances requiring change. We visualized this material to facilitate understanding connections and identifying potential areas for further exploration in the co-design process. Initially, we created a map based solely on findings from secondary research. At this stage, we expanded the map by integrating insights gathered from primary research and firsthand experiences.
3. Co-Design
We all sorted through our findings together and came up with 6 overall Themes that we could further explore in the Co-Design: Nutrition, Support System, Routines/Activities, Sleep Hygiene, Brain Health Knowledge and Awareness/Reflection.
Taking those Themes and narrowing down overlapping findings lead us to create three Performance Specifications, which we would keep in mind and ideally fulfill through the Co-Design Workshop:
The Co-Design should visualize a learning process and help reflect upon a holistic brain health approach.
The Co-Design should help families exchange medical knowledge, share coping strategies, family wellness and health practices into their lives.
The Co-Created strategy should offer resources and support the families to maintain and adapt their mental health and self-care routines over time.
Following are the cultural probe templates created:
Thematic Analysis of the Co-design Activities
Final Themes
Performance Specifications for the Strategy
From all these insights we gathered, we focused on designing a flexible, personalized strategy that values existing habits while introducing small, actionable improvements to foster a behavior change.
Our strategy addresses Awareness, Creating Routines and structures, Action and Implementation and fostering support system. This meant that our strategy should achieve the following three points:
The strategy should support families in discovering and adapting brain health practices in ways that align with their existing routines and knowledge, allowing them to be implemented in their daily lives according to their individual capacities.
These performance specifications guided the formulation of key areas for intervention, which serve as opportunities, guidelines, and frameworks for developing the final strategy. Initially, these opportunities were framed using the “how might we” approach, a common term in design thinking. However, under Guillermina’s guidance, we shifted to alternative phrasings such as “how can we try to help...” or “what is possible to create...” to better align with the principles of transformation design.
What is possible to
create opportunities for dynamic exchanges of knowledge and experiences among parents, empowering them to learn from one another and implement practices that enhance their children’s brain health?
What is possible to
foster self-reflection as a tool for building awareness and knowledge among families, enabling them to base learning on past experiences and enhance their personal well-being?
What is possible to
support families in transforming awareness into action by integrating brain health practices into their daily lives in meaningful and sustainable ways?
After brainstorming along these areas of opportunities, we came up with our final strategy.
3. Co-Design
The Concept
Our strategy is in the form of a card game that is to be placed on the dinner table throughout the duration of the game. As eating together already brings the family together at the table, they can spare a few minutes every time they sit together to play a session of the game. The span of the game goes several weeks, a few minutes at a time. How long such a session goes, is up to the families capacities, but we believe that just five to ten minutes can already go a long way.
The proposed strategy is designed to integrate brain health practices into daily life through an engaging and accessible approach. By incorporating structured activities into a playful format, the goal is to foster self reflection, habit building, and opportunity recognition, while also strengthening family bonds.
The Content
Of course also, the game is nothing if the content isn’t well thought out. So how do we formulate the cards in a way that the participant can answer it as intended? The cards are all based on external sources from the medical field about these topics, but formulation is key here.
How to Play
Deciding the rules of a card game that addresses a complex topic, such as brain health involved careful consideration. When designing how a session should be played we explored different approaches regarding card selection and participation:
The family picks one random card per session and responds the prompt or question on the card together.
Every person picks one card each in one session and answers or talks about their respective card.
We chose to do a mixture in between those two options, as both would have created other obstacles. We decided that the family does choose their cards individually but that the experiment card, the one week long challenge, is to be picked for the whole family together and once a week to ensure it is being picked regularly.
Feedback, Evaluation & Learnings
We play tested the game with our classmates by simulating a the situation as we would intend it to be played with a family: during eating when sitting together at the table. The participants were engaged in the game and even though they sidetracked in the discussion a bit, the cards prompted them to have a conversation about brain health related topics. So the concept in itself seemed to be working.
What works?
What can be improved?
Consistency is key: The game’s impact depends on how families hold themselves accountable. So we would have to find out what we could do on our end to make it happen.
Staying fresh: Repetition could become a challenge. How could we improve the game to make it interesting, even for several play-throughs?
