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The Challenge:
What does it mean to “live with HIV”?
A pharmaceutical company has had an HIV pill on the market for over a decade. Chemically, nothing will change. Their particular configuration, they knew, is good for certain patient profiles and segments. Their sales reports showed, however, that physicians were not prescribing their medication necessarily by those segments. We determined the forces at play for decisions that were happening multiple degrees removed from the medication development (doctor’s offices, community clinics, patients’ homes).
Key work done
I was a contractor working with Delve (formerly Design Concepts) - my role was supporting research guide development, moderating interviews, designing & facilitating synthesis workshops, and designing outputs such as experience maps and storyboards.
Outcome
Our artifacts created a baseline the leadership at the company used to facilitate their roadmap development work. This included roadmaps that focused on managing current medications (where to invest in updates to packaging, pharmacy-programs, and educational content) as well as future medication development (where to invest resources, which questions were key to answer first in a go to market strategy).
Doing the work
Conducting interviews: My role focused on the US-based interviews in Texas, Florida, and New York. (Although I also got to flex my mother tongue, and moderated interviews in Germany remotely)
We focused on understanding the mindsets of the various actors:
How did HIV-positive patients make decisions around their care? What influenced their attitudes around their medication options? What were the barriers they experienced in living with HIV?
How did doctors come to make their recommendations?
What role do clinics play in supporting community members?
Senior executives and pharmaceutical representatives traveled with us and listened to patients’ stories. They had been there in the 80s and 90s, saw the impact their medication was able to have saving the lives of millions of people around the world. This was their first time meeting and listening first-hand to HIV patient experiences - learning of the challenges in coming to terms with the diagnosis, access to care, and adherence.
Example framework from research synthesis
Synthesizing the key insights
In an industry as complex and as entrenched as this, it was imperative we included the business and institutional knowledge of the folks we were going to ultimately present to, and who would be the ones to carry forward to implement changes. Our aim was to arm key executives with a logic and understanding of the experience that they would leverage in advocating for changes that would feel new, and perhaps uncomfortably so, for the company.
Agenda — and impact
Storytelling: videos of all three interview groups
Directors began citing quotes they’d heard in the field to further flesh out and ground activities later
Friction mapping: pointed collecting of insights related to pain points
During later brainstorms friction points were brought in organically, to help articulate how a given idea would solve one or multiple issues
Agents were able to give insight as to the back-office processes that resulted in certain administrative pain points
Agents were able to connect the dots between assumptions they were making in their role and the reality of patient’s lives and decision-making
Directed ideating with larger thematic buckets we had prepared during initial interview synthesis
Those who had been out in the field with us / listened into interviews brought along the debrief exercise sheets we had provided and were able to make use of thought starters they had jotted down
“I had the pleasure of working with Ariana at Delve (formerly Design Concepts). Ariana is hard working, creative, insightful and fun to have on a team and in the office. Ariana worked as a design researcher on a complex project mapping the HIV journey. She helped conduct qualitative in home and in office research across the United States, collaborated in analyzing the data, visualizing the findings and creating an experience map and recommendations for the client. I am happy to recommend Ariana and serve as a reference for her.”
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