A Co-Creation toolkit report for our research method class at Emily Carr University. The purpose of this toolkit is to facilitate Surrey Memorial Hospital's current signage system. Activities were accessed to accommodate the best possible results for our research question.

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PROJECT 3 REPORT
CO-CREATIONTOOLKIT
Rebecca & Xianke
SOCS 309 SU02
Hoda Hamouda
June 2016

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DESIGN CONTEXT
Surrey Memorial Hospital (SMH) was founded in 1959 and is one of the
twelve hospitals under Fraser Health Authority. It is the second largest hospital in
British Columbia, and its emergency room is the most active units in the province.
EDG Experience Design Group recently redesigned the interior and exterior
signage system in Surrey Memorial Hospital.Throughout their research, the EDG
found that adding colour coded areas in their maps was able to improve wayfinding.
Their research was influenced by researching hospital signage systems in other cities
ofVancouver, and based their redesign on them.They explained that the results of
the their redesign has improved navigation among patients, visitors and staff in the
navigation experience.
On June 14th 2016, an interview was conducted with nurses who worked
at Surrey Memorial hospital. Despite the redesign of the navigation system nurses
claimed that visitors still had difficulties navigating through the hospital.The nurses
expressed their frustration that they would like to explain to visitors how to get to
their specific location, but were not able to express themselves well.
The purpose of this toolkit is to get an in depth understanding of the user
group’s experience related to the current signage system.The main question we are
researching is “How to facilitate the SMH’s current signage system?”.The findings of
the research from the co-creation process could be useful on finding these issues.
From there on, we can ask whether these issues stem from the system itself or
minor misplacements of arrows or errors in the numbering system.The toolkit will
generate Qualitative information on the emotional aspects of the signage system and
Quantitative information to investigate the situation.
Keywords: space design, signage system, mapping system, co-creation, co-design

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This generative design toolkit uses purposive sampling for research participants.
The user group are visitors and patients who have prior experience with Surrey
Memorial Hospital. Primarily, the user group will have a variety of different profiles
including an age ranging from young adults (18-24) to adults (35-65).These profiles
should also come from different family backgrounds.
The hospital staff is not included in the user participants sample since they already
have knowledge of the interior layout.
Research Question: How to facilitate signage and map making in Surrey Memorial
Hospital?
Sub-Question: What is working, and not working? Is the problem the mapping
system or simple misplacement?
Goal/Intent: Gain an understanding of visitors and patients perspective of Surrey
Memorial hospital's current signage system.
USER GROUP
Current Hospital Map Directory in Surrey Memorial Hospital

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SESSION SCRIPT
Time (min) Action Checklist
One week prior: Send out Diary Entries through mail
5 Introduction Explaining the subject and
toolkits
10-15 Questionnaire (Activity 1) Provide the participants
with the questionnaire and
fill them out
5 Film (Activity 2) Providing an example of
how the film and map
work together
30 Working session (Activity
3)
Circling out the place
where you think it’s
confusing on the map
5 Discussion Results and feedback
3 Closing
Schedule
Co-creation schedule plan

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SESSION PROCESS
• Section maps of Surrey Memorial Hospital
• Instruction book
• Pictures
• Stickers/symbols
• Lined Paper
• Film
• Markers
• Workbook
Materials
Because of the scale of the hospital, we choose the most representative section of
map from all the survey we did with our participants for experimental purpose.
This process will be carried out in a three-step design plan.

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A picture of the inside contents of the toolbox
SIGNAGE AND MAPPING TOOLBOX

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One week prior, diary entires will be mailed to the participants.The participants
would be asked to do a diary about their own experience of getting lost in the
hospital, and according to their experiences, we’d building a data and figuring out
where is the department/unit the visitors visit the most as well as where is the spot
most confusing to visitors.
The Questionnaire would help us to know our participants better in general sense.
It will also give us answers that might have been missed with the diary entries.We
would like to get a general comprehension about the relation between people and
the mapping system outside of Surrey Memorial Hospital.We’d like to know how
people feel how about the maps and signs, and how much do they depend on it, and
who or where would they get assists when they feel lost.This questionnaire should
support us on why we think the map or signage system should be improved.
ACTIVITY 1: DIARY ENTRIES
A notepad will be sent out to each participant and they will be required to write
down their thoughts and feeling regarding the current signage system

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Activity 1
QUESTIONNAIRE
Have you ever gotten lost when you were visiting malls, hospital, parks, and
other facilities?
 Yes  No
Have you ever been to Surrey Memorial Hospital?
 Yes  No
Is checking the directory the first thing you do when you visit one of these
facilities?
 Yes  No
Would you take your time making sure you fully understand the map in the
facility before you make your move, or would you like to rely on the signage
system while you are on your way? If so, why?
When are you lost/confused, are you more inclined to ask for help from
another person, or rely on the signage?
Please answer the following questions accordingly.
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→ Rebecca & Xianke
SOCS 309
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Do you feel that the signage system in Surrey Memorial Hospital is user-
friendly? Why or why not?
If so,What was the unit you were visiting and where did you enter the
hospital?
On a scale from 1-5 rate the hospitality of the staffs (nurses and security) in
Surrey Memorial Hospital with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest.
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ACTIVITY 2: PHOTOS/FILM
We’d have a map ready in a 2-D form, and mark the most-visited department as
the destination on it as the end of an exemplified route, with any entrance of the
hospital as the beginning.Then we would show participants the route on the video,
and let them feel the hospital in a spatial sense and see if they can empathize with
the people who have been feeling lost in the hospital before.
Due to setbacks we had to resort to using pictures instead, although realistically we
would've wanted to use film footage

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ACTIVITY 3: MAP MAKING
After the participants watching the video, if they feel as confusing as the people who
have been lost, they can mark out the confusing area on the 2-D map we presented.
Participants will use the stickers to mark the problem areas on the map while the
researchers analyze the results in the workbook

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Activity 1: The Diaries and Questionnaire
The Diaries would provide us the experience that participants had with the hospital.
The purpose of it is that the diaries connect the participants and designers on a same
emotional level.
The Questionnaire is for designers getting to know the participants and
understanding how maps are connected to their personal life.Then it narrowed
down to the hospital map specifically, it’ll further enhance the understanding for
designers about the participants on a emotional and functional level.
Activity 2: Photos
The purpose of the video is to trigger the memories from the participants.
Activity 3: Making the map
The purpose of asking the participants to remake the map is to receive inspiration
and ideas from them for designers to make the final decision.
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Diagram of the Path to Expression found in Chapter 2 of the ConvivialToolbox
PATH OF EXPRESSION

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FEEDBACK/PROCESS
We got the idea of “redesigning” the map of the Surrey Memorial hospital from our
own experience of failing to navigating ourselves to the place where we wanted to
go in the hospital.
We realized that in order to empathize our participants with us, we have to provide
a 3D experience to trigger their own memories of getting lost in there. However,
after considering the scale of the hospital and the skills we can offer as well as the
time restriction to this research, we found it is unlikely to make an actual 3-D model
or installation for our participants. So instead of building a model of the hospital,
we think that the best way to teleport our participants back to the hospital is by
showing them a video of the routes they were using from their previous experience.
And that’s where we decide to pay another visit to Surrey Memorial hospital again as
a team for filming.
We went there without realizing to film a hospital, we need to go through the paper
works and get a permission. So it turned out we didn’t get to film anything. However,
we did ask for the procedure of how to get the permission, and now we get a fairly
clear idea of how can we arrange a better plan for the future.
For the alternative plan of failing to film, we took some pictures of the hospital, and
hopefully with our explanations, we can bring back the feelings and emotion of the
participants from their own experiences.
Feedback
From the pilot testing, our participants suggest that the video are not fully relatable
for them to recognize where was the spots they were lost. Some suggest that they
prefer if there is 3D model available, while others think they are able to draw out the
spot they were lost from their memories.

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CONCLUSION
What we have learned throughout the co-creation toolkit process is that a lot of
time and effort needs to be dedicated in order for it to be successful.We have
discovered that while co-creation has its benefits we are sometimes not able to fully
get the desired results we originally planned. Initially, we wanted to use film footage
for our activity session to give participants a better visualization of the hospital space.
We were unfortunately not able to succeed with this goal since we didn’t have
authorization from Fraser Health’s communication department.
Given more time we would revisit the prototype and test it with participants in our
target group in order to find improvements.
The exterior layout of Surrey Memorial Hospital featuring the Emergency unit.

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Neuman,William Lawrence. Social Research Methods: Qualitative and Quantitative
Approaches. Boston:Allyn and Bacon, 1997. Print.
Sanders, Elizabeth B.-N., and Pieter Jan Stappers. ConvivialToolbox: Generative
Research for the Front End of Design.Amsterdam: BIS, 2012. Print
Surrey Mental Health and Substance Use Services. (2013, May). Retrieved June 17,
2016, from https://www.surrey.ca/files/Surrey_MHSU_Services_2013.pdf
Surrey Memorial Hospital Interior Sign Program. (n.d.). Retrieved June 17, 2016, from
http://www.experiencedesigngroup.ca/#/w13015/
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WORKS CITED