PROJECT DETAIL
Four Week Class Project
MY ROLE
Prototype Design, Concept Development
For this project, we were challenged to create a novel mobile app service that brings together two different user roles, with different goals, together in the completion of a task.
This co-creation of value between different kinds of users has become more prominent through the rise of the peer and sharing economy. Our team chose to explore the problem space of elderly caregiving because of the significance of informal work involved in it.
GUERILLA RESEARCH
We kicked off our own research with an “ecosystem exploration” worksheet, to help us understand the holes in our knowledge. Next, we conducted a few quick interviews with family members who are caring for their parents.
Key insights:
1) It’s difficult to keep track of a loved one’s mental health over time, especially if you don’t see him/her every day
2) Families want to move their loved ones into full-time care before accidents and injuries occur
3) Caretakers want their loved ones to feel independent and involved
4) Losing memories means losing precious stories and family history
One emerging theme from our interviews was the need to know about and track changes in the elderly person's status so that the caregivers could prepare for these changing needs, whether it means getting additional help or transitioning to a facility.
Ideation
We used these insights and our personas to brainstorm some narratives. How could mobile technology fill some of these needs? Along the way, we discovered a fledgling memory-health analysis tool known as “conversational analysis.” Speech patterns, cadence, and repetition in a recording can be analyzed to gauge the progression of a loved one’s memory disorder. We worked this technology into our brainstorming and made storyboards to convey the most promising solution.
Inspired by StoryCorps, we decided to use storytelling and other meaningful conversations to capture speech for analysis. The caregivers can arrange these recordings (and other details) into story streams, which are precious and valuable to the entire family.
PROTOTYPE
We created several wireframe and prototype iterations using the Material Design guidelines. As we iterated, we removed excess features that didn’t strengthen the core idea.
Final designs for Hector’s flow (left) and Rosario’s flow (right)
We also created simple animations for the analysis loading time and Rosario’s “new story” notification (shown below). A click-through prototype of our final app proposal is live on InVision.
Providing feedback: easing wait time while recordings are processed
Providing feed-forward: a new recording is available
