This article presents the design process of innovative prototypes for cervical cancer prevention in primary care centers located in low-income settings in Cali, Colombia, using the Human-Centered Design (HCD). The project was developed in collaboration with a public healthcare network comprised of 38 urban and rural centers with women between the ages of 25 and 65 years, healthcare providers of the cancer program, healthcare administrators and the general manager of said network. Our HCD process involved five stages: research, need synthesis, ideation and co-design process, prototyping and in-context usability testing. In practice, some of the stages are overlapped and iterated throughout the design process. We conducted observations, open-ended interviews and conversations, multi-stakeholder workshops, focus groups, systematic text condensation analyses and tests in real contexts.
The tests carried out with each prototype showed their value, limitations and possibilities in terms of subsequent development and validation through public health research or clinical research. We recognize that a longer-term evaluation is required in order to determine whether the prototypes will be used regularly, integrated into cervical cancer screening services and effectively improve access to cytology as a screening test. We conclude that HCD is a useful for design-based prevention in the field of cervical cancer.