Human-Centered Design Insights

Designing the Healthcare Experience
Beryl Institute “Patient Experience Learning Bite” Video

September, 2018

Mark VanderKlipp, shares his thoughts on how the role of human-centered Healthcare Experience Design can enable staff to consistently deliver and empower patients to confidently navigate their healthcare experience.


The Invaluable Gift of Clarity
Beryl Institute Guest Blog Post

January 19, 2018

In over 30 years as a designer, I’ve seen clients focus more on the tool (the identity, communication, policy, wayfinding system, mobile app, architecture, etc.) than they do on the anticipated behaviors of the people that support or interact with those tools.

To be sure, these are critical elements designed to support any patient experience initiative. My goal in writing this post is to help you see the value of designing for human interactions (engagement, connection, expectation, interaction, enlistment, orientation, learning) as well as the tools themselves.


5 Building Blocks of Wayfinding
Healthcare Design Magazine

December, 2016

Healthcare designers and planners develop master plans that peer into an organization’s foreseeable future and develop built environment solutions that respond accordingly to the needs that are identified. Healthcare communications professionals perform a similar exercise, except their response is the development of communication strategies that engage and inform patients, staff, and visitors on changes to come. A comprehensive wayfinding strategy lives at the intersection of these two disciplines. For healthcare patients and visitors, what they know is just as important as what they see. An internal team, tasked with managing both informational and physical infrastructure, can proactively address wayfinding together.


Walk This Way
Healthcare Design Magazine

November, 2014

In 2012, the leadership of Munson Medical Center in Traverse City, Mich., decided to address its wayfinding system—again. They’d tried before in 2006, redesigning a system of colored floor lines into one anchored by public elevator cores and a new color/letter scheme to define locations. But between 2006 and early 2012, an incomplete rollout and a lack of internal education caused the program to languish, and complaints about wayfinding grew.Munson’s internal wayfinding steering committee brought in Mark VanderKlipp to revisit the 2006 plan to see if it was worth picking up again or whether they should consider a new system altogether. The next step was a series of Kaizen (continuous process improvement) events to test potential solutions.


Better Stories by Design: Crafting Narratives that Stick 20+ facilitated workshops from 2017-2020

Responding to needs communicated by nonprofit community leaders, Rotary Charities of Traverse City asked us to design and deliver a workshop about storytelling process for their professional development series, the Leadership Learning Lab. This was our opportunity to not only research and facilitate, but also learn from others as they developed creative approaches to story design.Since that time, Mark VanderKlipp has delivered the tailored workshop to leaders across the country and across market verticals. Each of these were searching for a process to tell Better Stories by Design; each of them left the session with a draft narrative they could continue to refine and deliver to their constituents.


”We just went to Canada and it was AWESOME!“
International Downtown Association (IDA) 60th Anniversary Conference: IntenCity

June 2014, Ottawa Ontario

Mark VanderKlipp created a shared presentation about visitor experience planning, wayfinding, brand and marketing development with clients Graham Gerylo, former Project Manager with the City of Calgary Land Use Planning & Policy; David MacLachlan, Executive Director of Destination Northern Ontario and Chris Hughes, Partner with BC Hughes, Inc.


Phygital Wayfinding and Experience Mapping: New Ways of Looking at and Experiencing Downtown Environments
International Downtown Association 57th Annual Conference

October 2012, Charlotte NC

Our presentation focused on the integration of digital experiences as part of a comprehensive, city-wide branded experience. Joint presentation with Mark VanderKlipp and Rachel Downey, President, Guide Studio.