Rich Experiments

Building healthy habits in 30 days

Project delivery2020Southwark CouncilDiscovery and alpha
  • Client: Southwark Council
  • My role: Project manager
  • Delivered at: Comuzi, where I was Managing Director
TakeCare Southwark app screens: the 30 day programme, a diet question and personalised results
TakeCare Southwark challenge screens, from go-to snacks to reinventing date night
A service advertisement testing the proposition: there is power in community
A self care service advertisement made during lockdown
An early stakeholder workshop, mapping the project network, risks and what success looks like
A concept card from the ideation sessions, run remotely during lockdown

The client

Southwark Council wanted to understand whether digital support could help residents make healthier lifestyle changes, while addressing inequalities in health and access.

The brief

Run a discovery and alpha project to test whether a digital service could support health and wellbeing in the borough. We needed to understand residents’ needs, particularly among people who are often assumed to be less engaged with digital services, and find out whether residents wanted the council to play a role in this area.

How we did it

We started with a framing session with the council, then ran two focus groups of six residents each and five follow-up interviews.

When the first lockdown began, we moved the rest of the work online. Ideation ran remotely, and we tested low-fidelity service posters with five residents over WhatsApp and Google Meet. We then built a high-fidelity prototype, TakeCare Southwark, and tested it with five residents.

What we made

  • Two focus groups with Southwark residents and five follow-up interviews about health, motivation, local area and phone use
  • Testing for a new public-health brand, using different messages to see what encouraged people to take action
  • Online ideation sessions with national experts, local stakeholders and residents after the UK entered lockdown
  • Two service concepts tested through adverts to find out whether residents wanted them
  • TakeCare Southwark, a 30-day healthy-habits programme linking residents to advice, activities and local services
  • A handover into alpha and beta work that Southwark Council continued

My role

I managed the project from start to finish. This included managing the budget, running stakeholder check-ins, facilitating the in-person research sessions, and managing the extension when Southwark increased the scope of the work.

Outcomes

Project extendedSouthwark widened the scope during delivery
Alpha and betaThe council took the work forward into later phases
Eight commissionsSouthwark worked with us on eight projects across five services from 2020 to 2023

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