Changing Faces | Designing new ways to reach and meet the needs of everyone with a visible difference in the UK

Humanly was commissioned by the charity Changing Faces to carry out research and co-creation to develop new or adapted forms of support for people living with a visible difference.

Changing Faces’ vision is for everyone with a visible difference or disfigurement to be supported and respected, enabled through ensuring that everyone across the UK with a visible difference has access to the support they need, as well as increasing everyone’s understanding and acceptance of visible difference.

Humanly worked with Changing Faces over a 3-month period to explore the future of support for people with a visible difference, leading a human-centred design process involving over 70 people living with a visible difference or active in the provision of support.

The Process

Humanly spent the first month delving deep into the lives of people with a wide range of visible differences through ethnographic and creative research methods. Integral to this was engaging people with visible differences who did not have an existing relationship with Changing Faces, as well as groups underrepresented within those who have accessed support from Changing Faces, for example people from ethnic minority backgrounds and younger people.

Additionally, Humanly engaged healthcare professionals in order to understand their interactions with people with a diverse range of visible differences in different healthcare contexts, and how information, advice and support are currently provided.

This in-depth research process led to pivital insights that supported Changing Faces to strategically broaden its view of what ‘support’ could look like for people with visible differences.

Moreover, Humanly identified 4 overarching mindsets that the people involved in the research had in relation to their visible difference, each bringing a unique set of needs and desires.

By holistically understanding the lives of people with a visible difference, as well as encompassing the perspectives of healthcare professionals and other key stakeholders, Humanly identified a number of exciting opportunity areas for doing things differently.

These opportunities were taken into a co-creation process, with Humanly leading two workshops with key stakeholders to generate ideas. A range of personas and creative activities were used to spark lateral thinking about different ways to meet the needs of people with visible differences, which were then worked up by Humanly into a diverse range of concepts.

Humanly tested these concepts with people with a visible difference, Changing Faces staff and other key stakeholders in order to further refine concepts and develop recommendations for next steps.

The Outcomes

Changing Faces gained a deeper understanding of new audiences, including how to reach these audiences and how to tailor its activities to different mindsets.

By successfully harnessing the perspectives and ideas of seldom-heard groups, Humanly developed key insights and recommendations for new strategies that will enable Changing Faces to fulful its strategic ambition to reach and meet the needs of everyone with a visible difference in the UK.

The process led to a widened view of ‘support’ , uncovering new opportunities for meeting the needs of people with visible differences.

Bringing people with lived experience and stakeholders together to generate ideas inspired new thinking about approaches to achieve Changing Faces’ aims. One of the most impactful insights from people with visible differences was that they understood the problem as being with society, not themselves. Another powerful insight was around the desire for connections and support from peers. These insights led to a shift in focus from direct support to more lateral support, and driving societal change through championing inclusivity.

Practical recommendations for next steps outlined a clear path forwards, from prototyping to wider implementation.

Based on Humanly’s recommendations, plans are now underway to explore the exciting concepts developed further through a test and learn approach.

The Impact

Humanly’s work enabled Changing Faces explore a broad range of routes to achieving its strategic goals, and ultimately making the biggest impact for people affected by visible difference.

Moreover, Humanly supported Changing Faces through their first human-centred design process, building the charity’s capacity to apply this approach going forward, and to keep user needs at the forefront of their development.

‘Humanly guided Changing Faces through the user research and concept development stages of a project to explore new or adapted forms of support for adults with a visible difference or disfigurement. User-centred design was a new process for many and Humanly calmly and expertly took us through each stage.

Humanly’s research plan was tailored to ensure that we heard from people who had never engaged with Changing Faces previously, so that we weren’t just speaking to existing service users and campaigners, but trying to understand wider experiences and motivations for seeking support. The results partly reinforced some previous research and assumptions, but went much deeper, highlighting new insights and opportunities.

It also really challenged us to think about what ‘support’ looks like for our audience, and how it might differ from more traditional support services. We now have an exciting suite of concepts that we are keen to take forward into further testing. We look forward to working with Humanly again in future.’

Claire Reynolds, Director of Transformation at Changing Faces

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