Dishwasher sign

I love our dishwasher, but it’s so quiet, and so subtle, that you can miss the little blue light at the very bottom that indicates the dishes are mid-wash.

So I 3d printed a sign that all in the household can help signal to each other who’s on first: if it’s running, let it run. Once you realize it’s done… let the other person know if you emptied it or not.

 

Like all good things, this one required some iteration. Take a look here for the first prototype:

My wedding dress

I was looking for something light I could dance in. Had never been the one to imagine my wedding before it actually was in planning, so I took the time to try on a number of different styles. It was great fun gaining a better sense of what looks great on *me* (vs what looks good on models)

 

When I tried on BHLDN’s dress, my sister Avril and my friend Alex who’d joined me on so many of these trips just knew this was a keeper. 

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I loved that the pattern was leaves not flowers, that it had an unencumbered vibe while still being form fitting. And at under $1k it was budget-friendly.

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I did ask my local tailor to add a layer of the skirt to the front panel so it looked more like a one-piece.

And then the fun part was adding my own flair: from the getgo I was reticent to be married in white. Just so much “traditional” baggage that has been carried forward. And the rest of our wedding ceremony we had designed to fit to our multi-cultural and authentic selves. So the dress got a spin as well.

I love sunsets (and learned recently that the light at that time of day emits lithium, which is particularly positive-feeling inducing) and found that alcohol inks create just the dreamy effect I was hoping for. 

Home- Ferch, just south of Berlin, Germany

Home- Ferch, just south of Berlin, Germany

 

The effect is created with alcohol inks, which dilute the more isopropyl you use. I of course experimented on a safe piece of the hem before applying.

More on how we made the wedding weekend our own here

Our rings

my engagement ring:

Initially, I was reticent to go through the engagement ring “drama” - it’s not something I grew up seeing and I just didn’t care for the expense.

Robert implored me to reconsider, very much looking forward to finding a way to celebrate our commitment to marry. He proposed I design it myself, which of course piqued my interest.

I’d taken silversmithing / wax casting classes from Mandy & Sara over at RedStart Design while at college, and so it was a perfect fit to work with them to bring my ideas to life. They helped source gorgeous australian sapphires. Just as Roberts eyes shift between blue and green, so do the hues in the ring.

 

Our Wedding Bands:

Our bands were just as fun a journey as the engagement ring (and went a lot faster, too). Robert zeroed into the hammered look early on.

Ilana Natasha, our wedding photographer, had a ton of fun finding the best spots at our wedding venue to photograph our rings. We handed our box of eternal bands around to all guests during the ceremony, so that everyone could share their best wishes and blessings as they wished.

For more on how we made the wedding weekend our own, including other crafts & design work, check out our post here

Empower HIV patients

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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

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.”
— Stefanie Norvaisas, VP of Strategy & Principal - Delve

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