Lilly Patient Posters

Plakkaat was a research and design project to help Lilly scientists better understand the lives of patients who would use the medications they develop. The project surveyed eight different conditions, with the goal of designing 3 posters for each to convey the patient’s concerns.  The team explored online patient forums and support groups to learn about under-appreciated facets of patients’ lives and therapy.  Feedback came in vivid, unedited language that was not anticipated.  Since the scientists were involved throughout the process, they were exposed to the patients' language, emotions and challenges, which drove them to create raw, true-to-life documents that will be provocative and useful for future work.

“A wonderful example of confined creativity. A tight budget required an innovative approach to research. Wonderful, powerful, emotional.”   --Rhys Newman, IDSA, Nokia

Contact: Katie Clark: kclark@ideo.com

Credit: Ian Dapot and Devorah Klein of IDEO; Carrie Cirbo, James Singell, Bob Nesbitt, Henry Havel, Natarajan Rajagopalan, Leslie King, Melissa Keeney, Robert Ternik, Mark Arrigan and Brian Gould (VMC Consulting Corp) of Eli Lilly and Company