Designing for Those that Grieve
If you are faced with designing products, services, communications, events or other artifacts for those that are grieving it especially important to take a cognitive approach. Your goal may be to help them make sense of a loss, find hope in the future or otherwise cope but the key is to understand the cognition of the grieving process. Susan Berger has a new book that goes beyond the typical treatment (3-stages of grieving) and introduces types of grievers including the Nomad, Memorialist, Normalizer, Activist and the Seeker. Each type has a specific set of cognitive needs or psychographic profile. You can get more information from an interview she did for PsyCentral or check out her book, The Five Ways We Grieve.
I have yet to apply her theory to a design problem but will have a chance to shortly. I will blog what I find.
