Designing the Stack
Mental health is under pressure and the demand for mental health care is growing. 100,000 people are waiting for help, but there is a structural capacity shortage. This needs to change. How? By shifting towards informal and preventive care.
Digital technology can play a key role in this. Online environments can combine the provision of information with safe spaces for community and peer support. Patients and their loved ones can – provided they are properly supported – support one another there, thereby reducing the demand for formal care.
It is crucial that these environments are designed and managed in line with public values. This means, amongst other things, that the information provided is reliable, that the privacy of those involved is safeguarded, and that spaces for meeting and exchanging ideas are safe and trustworthy. This task is more complex than simply designing a platform or app. To achieve a sustainable impact and safeguard public values, community stewardship (guidance and moderation) and governance (the responsibilities of organisations providing management) must also be well organised, and formal care must be properly integrated. Such a multi-layered system comprising application, organisational embedding and governance is also referred to as a ‘stack’. There is currently no integrated approach to developing such a stack within mental health care (Trimbos 2022). As a result, patients and their loved ones are, for the time being, reliant on commercial platforms that undermine privacy, control, inclusivity and reliability.
Designing the Stack explores how the creative industry can contribute to the development of such an integrated digital portal. Together with healthcare organisations, designers and social partners, we are developing new methods for designing such digital environments as a ‘stack’: from the app and user experience to community stewardship and its governance. The project team is testing this approach in mental health care practice. However, the insights are more widely applicable: the design challenge of translating public values into a digital environment and managing it is also relevant to other societal domains. Libraries, cultural institutions, broadcasters and local communities also need digital public spaces for information exchange and community building, including the associated roles and governance structures in which public values are embedded.
The issue facing mental health care thus revolves around the broader design challenge of digital public spaces. The ambition of Designing the Stack is to develop methods and strategies that will enable the creative industry to play a leading role in their development.
