Life Café: Designing Tools for Difficult Conversations
- Jul 24
- 1 min read
The Life Café is a facilitated activity kit that helps people discuss what gives life meaning and what good care should look like, particularly around palliative and end-of-life experiences.
It was developed by Claire Craig, Helen Fisher and Paul Chamberlain at Sheffield Hallam University’s Lab4Living through Marie Curie’s Design to Care Programme. The activities were co-developed and refined with community participants.
Why I saved this: I was interested in how physical prompts and structured activities can make a sensitive conversation more approachable without reducing its complexity. For design students, Life Café demonstrates how artefacts can scaffold discussion, uncover lived experience and support co-design around subjects people may find difficult to express directly.
Worth considering: How could a designed object help someone discuss an experience they struggle to put into words?
Try applying it: Create one simple prompt that helps users describe what matters to them.
Design themes: Co-design, healthcare design, facilitation, emotional wellbeing, participatory research
Comments