(1 - 4 students)
The DHIS2 software platform is developed at the Department of Informatics at the University of Oslo and used by public and private organizations in more than 60 countries to support the work of health managers and clinicians. As DHIS2 is designed as a generic system to work across multiple contexts, it has to be shaped and 'customized' to fit the needs of users when implemented in specific organizations. This is done with the help of DHIS2 experts in various countries, making up a community of implementers and developers around the software. As the DHIS2 software is becoming more flexible, for instance by enabling the development of custom apps on top of the generic solution, there is an increasing potential for user-oriented design and innovation to address emerging user needs across implementations. To better utilize this potential, awareness, motivation, and competence in advocating for and using appropriate approaches and methods to user-oriented design and innovation are needed. For instance to support developers and implementers in understanding the current practices and needs of users, analyzing their problems and needs, and ideating, prototyping, and evaluating solutions with users.
Students will work in collaboration with DHIS2 experts in the community to, for instance:
- understand the current implementation and design practices to identify challenges
- identify appropriate methods for user-oriented design and innovation that can be included in existing practices (e.g., participatory design, activity-oriented design, etc)
- potentially develop material (e.g., guidelines, method toolkits) that can help strengthen awareness, motivation, and competence in user-oriented design and innovation for the community.
The students will be part of the DHIS2 Design Lab, working together with a larger group of master students and researchers in exploring various aspects of user-oriented design and innovation around DHIS2, and on better supporting the development of apps for the platform.