A design for life: Could this wellness device have major implications for healthcare?

Healthtech and wellness tech are two fields which are increasingly overlapping – and one thing they have in common: design credentials. Orrb is a wellness device that could have major implications for healthcare delivery. Med-Tech Innovation News editor Dave Gray met with its designer, Lee McCormack, at Clerkenwell Design Week.

With medical devices and wellness products taking an increasingly consumer-centric design, how is the design process evolving for those in the field? Lee McCormack’s Orrb has been through that process and has undergone several iterations along the way. His journey saw him form partnerships with McLaren F1 as well as Disney, to name just two.

The product dates back to 1997, when McCormack was finishing his degree in design at Goldsmiths, having spent the previous few years travelling through India and Nepal learning techniques in mindfulness and meditation.

He tells me he was fascinated by the role of psychology and anthropology in the creative process – an interest he gained from his experiences in remote communities.

“I was interested in social cohesion and social tensions, the interplay between those things, and how that manifests in the environments the people operate in,” he explains.

At the same time, the late nineties were a time of technological – and aesthetic – evolution.

“The architecture was starting to shift from cubicle format into open-plan format. I asked: what impact was this having on people’s wellbeing, and the interplay between leisure and work?”

Workspaces were going open-plan, and to match that in the digital world, mobile technologies and social networks were also breaking down the barriers to communication.

McCormack recalls how “people would plan where to place water coolers in the office for maximum interaction between employees who wouldn’t normally interact.”

He studied this shift, and concluded that people working in the city would soon need some respite from all the openness.

“The outcome in the West of the proliferation of technology was an increased ability to be connected, but also an increased ability to keep on working and to do more work. Privacy was diminishing, the barriers between work and play were diminishing. It seemed obvious to me that over time there would be consequences from this insatiable drive towards openness and connectivity. And sure enough, the outcome has been increased levels of stress and the inability for people to focus on particular tasks,” he explains.

That’s when, in 1997, he began working on a space that would enable a person to feel safe, and secure, allowing them to recuperate and recover from stress.

“As a product designer you start to create a brief around the requirements for delivering this solution. You have to look at spatial constraints, ergonomic restraints and manufacturing challenges. We ended up with a very small footprint. I made the first prototype in 2002, but even now the actual form has never changed. It’s expanded and contracted a little, but through specialist techniques I was able to bring the footprint right down while keeping the size the same inside.

“The whole body is actually supported in a reclined position. Once I’d determined the optimum position I wanted to place them in, the form of the device was wrapped around that.”

Lots has changed in the 20+ years of Orrb’s development, not least in the technology space. This means that there’s a need for a lot of modularity. All of the so-called ‘touchpoints’ included in Orrb are interchangeable, allowing for a degree of future-proofing, without needing to change the overall form of the product.

I asked McCormack about the process of finding and working with industry partners to design Orrb.

“The partners I worked with have always been a mix of my own handpicked teams, mostly mechanical engineers.

“Most of the companies I worked with were using the product as a marketing tool. So that’s how I was able to keep the vision alive. Disney ordered 25 of the pods and used them to market some of their movies.

Disney had seen an early prototype of Orrb in a window in Selfridges – part of an exhibition showcasing young designers. One of the producers for the Disney sci-fi film Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy asked if he'd be happy to loan them the product which was to be featured within the ‘Heart of Gold’ spaceship at the centre of the film.

Disney executives became aware of the product during filming and approached him again to enquire about purchasing 500 units. At the time, he'd only produced a few prototypes and wasn't geared up for production on that scale. He eventually agreed to supply 25 units within their 12 week lead time.

“At the same time I formed a partnership with McLaren to engineer a new version of the product. They brought a lot of expertise, especially in terms of materials, which helped me take the product to a new level.

“In fact, I developed a couple of versions of the product with them. The kind of thing they learn in F1 is around materials science. Each team has an applied technologies division, and each of those divisions will try and devise other commercial uses from those technologies which evolve from racing cars.”

The 25 units were distributed worldwide in advance of the film release, with five in the UK, seven in the US and the rest across Europe and Brazil.

McCormack worked with Disney’s creative team and produced an interactive user experience that was used to engage the public in the build-up to the film’s release in each country. Disney then went on to use them for a number of other films including Pirates of the Carribbean; The Curse of the Black Pearl, and its sequel, Dead Man's Chest, amongst others.

Major brands were now using Orrb as a marketing tool, but McCormack still wanted to see it used as a wellness product. Unfortunately around that time, the financial crisis hit, and ideas like this became seen as non-essential in the office space.

McCormack’s vision has always involved developing a platform into which different technologies could be employed to help an individual with their wellbeing, through diagnostics, or even treatment.

Now launched into the workplace wellness sector, he’s getting ready to take on medtech.

“In 2018 we see a plethora of telemedicine, eHealth, online diagnostics. There’s loads of companies specialised in designing medical equipment into ever-smaller packages. The medical industry has started to fall in love with the ergonomics of design.

“There’s applications built into Orrb now like guided meditation, breathing exercises, and mindfulness. These things teach people resilience and techniques for reducing stress. But other technologies have evolved to the point where we can start to look at how they are delivered and design-in those technologies. This could include diagnosis, or even writing prescriptions. The aim is to take away as many of the tasks as possible that people go to see a GP for. I’m thinking of this as a micro-clinic, with the incorporation of the best medical technologies that are available to us.”