Anwesha Basu

I am Research Assistant in Design on the UKRI NortHFutures Hub programme. I joined Open Lab after completing my master’s in User Experience Design at University of the Arts London (UAL). My practice sits between participatory research and interaction design, with a particular interest in how design can support more equitable healthcare.

Previously, I worked as a UI/UX Designer for a healthtech startup based in India and Abu Dhabi, helping to design a hospital electronic medical record (EMR) system for Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in India. That experience tangled with the vastness of India and it's audience taught me the importance of dialogue and research before major digital transformation, and of the community infrastructures that support digital literacy at every stage. During my Master’s at UAL, I took part in a collaborative project with industry focused on building trust between healthcare professionals and patients within the NHS. This strengthened my interest in design for healthcare and encouraged me to reflect on my positionality as a designer, how my own experiences and assumptions shape my work, and how individual interactions sit within wider social and institutional contexts.

My work at NortHFutures has helped me pursue my interest in enlarging the circle of inclusion, where the hub’s Research through Design approach has given me space to grow as a researcher. I’ve contributed to work exploring parents’ perspectives on sharing mental health data for research, and on digital transformation within the NHS.

Alongside this, I’ve been practicing interaction and communication design for the hub’s work on developing community infrastructure. Through interface design and testing in collaboration with project partners, I’ve seen first-hand how technology and design thinking come together, and how designs evolve through feedback and iteration.