A collection of sketch prototypes in a studio environment.

The idea for the prototype was for the product to be placed in the fridge of both users and would send a message to the device in the fridge if there has been little usage of the fridge, the words represented on the prototype would actually be heard aloud through a speaker in this prototype. This could be just a prompt to remind their parent of an event in that day that could be sent before the family member went to work and was unable to phone the relative later in the day for example.

The famous British designer Paul Smith talks about designing a glass bottle for Evian

watch?v=UzPyXPzy6ZY&feature=player_embedded

This mood board was created to try and gain some inspiration of how the product may represent information at the relative end (secondary user). I want to make this quite quirky and create. I was trying to look at communication devices that are paired up, I need to think about how my product will look at a degree show and how I can please both sides of my user groups.

Photo sources:

http://www.123rf.com/photo_10786739_70i-s-old-radio-dial-close-up-with-glowing-scale-numbers.html

http://www.gearculture.com/gear/lexon-foam-radio/

id.gatech.edu

walyou.com

designhomeonline.net

blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com

textually.org

http://www.finalsite.com/.

This prototype was to show how colour might be useful in representing daily fridge usage. The purpose of this experience prototype was to gauge how this about how the relatives might find this. For instance when the fridge is opened the colourwheel starts spinning and a change in colour occurs.

Prototype two is a non-technical prototype that allows families members to send messages to their elderly relative to receive in their fridge.

These photos are snap shots of my sketchbook contains some thoughts and work-in-progress sketches.

Today I had my first tutorial of 2012 and the first with my new adviser Polly. In preparation I started a new Moleskine and made a summary/list of my project and skimmed through what I had done in phase 1. This was handy to read to keep me on track as I can often go off into a nervous mumble! Here is the list of points I made when Polly asked for an overview of my project (here are more in depth point below):

• Researching technology to pro-long independent living among people aged 75 and over.
• The main idea is a communication device between families, initially to act as a device that can provide some form of reassurance for the family or even friends/carers to make sure the primary user is safe and well. In addition to this the device will create communication in an interactive way to keep in touch as well as the telephone and letter- which from research of around 10 middle age participants the main ways to communicate with their elderly family and friends after visiting.
• This area of research into elderly independent living is a topical issue of recent years, reading the latest article surrounding the issue yesterday, the Telegraph claims there is a ‘care crisis’ .. “Social care is in crisis. There are fewer services available, yet the numbers of people needing social care is growing. The result is that nearly 800,000 older people who need care do not get any formal support”- Michelle Mitchell, Age UK’s Charity Director. The article can be found here and explains the effects of council cuts to residential homes and care for the elderly: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9032614/Care-crisis-facing-the-elderly-MPs.html
• I have researched current technology available in the home for independent living namely Care Call package. I decided to find out what services were available in my local council of Dumfries and Galloway. Although there is a great care call/ tele call service avaible there is a cost involved at £2.87 a week. This is a small price for reassurance and safety but looking into my product and from conversations with a staff nurse my product would be a one off cost that would hopefully be appealing to people. There is an interesting pdf that breaksdown all of the services and products available through the service and has several scenarios of telecare user stories: http://www.dumgal.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=8821&p=0
• The product I intend of designing will be an additional product in the home that will compliment the tele care package.
• The aim is the make the product as subtle and non-intrusive for the primary user as possible, but on the flip side to inform the secondary user that their relative is reassured

• In Phase 1 I have spoken to several health professional that work with the elderly on a daily basis….Mary is a district nurse with nearly 30 years experience. She is now working with the elderly when they arrive home from hospital and organises the support and care needed for the patient in the home; which might involved the occupational department to provide certain products in the home for instance hand railings and sensors. She has helped me to think about what area she thinks would be good to focus in and has provided insights about some reoccuring problems she comes across. I have been in touch with Mary about my project since Phase 0 and will keep her updated into Phase 2 especially to gain some feedback for my prototypes.
• Jane is a senior carer at a nursing home and featured in my documentary video. I knew for my video it had to be ethnographic and I wanted to challenge myself a bit, slightly going off track from my project but staying with the research of where I seen a place for my product to fit, which, at the time was my deepest research. I knew I wanted the product to be in the home but did not want to turn my back on the idea of the product being useful in another setting. I remembered listening to Martin on ideas day and how he thought my project would fit well in a care home environment and being slightly curious I wanted to see for myself. Taking him influence and when speaking to Graham about my idea I decided to arrange a visit. Luckily for me Jane was very accommodating and was very welcoming, giving me a tour of the care home. I explained my idea to Jane and at first she was not convinced a communication device between families and residents would be very useful due to their levels of dementia but explained that she had worked in a residential home in the pass and believed it would suit there better. I was interested to hear about family relationships between residents and their families, Jane said that she holds up old photographs for the residents when their family call to try and trigger the memory, unfortunately I couldn’t show much of my interview with Jane on my video but it was filled with some photographs from the home to show the environment I would be designing for if I were to pursue the idea of having my product in a care home. However from the experience I do not think the product could be used to the best of its potential or as I want it to be and Jane told me of the red tape involved in having something new like my product in the home would create a lot of red tape and I think having had time to reflect on that part of my research that it was an area I explored but has since decided to say with independent living as my main user.
• The visit to the care home did make me think about dementia and how my product could be used for those living independently with dementia.
• In the Christmas holidays I also visited the Occupational Department at Cumberland Infirmary to shadow an OT for the morning, although it was in a hospital setting and not on the district as preferred I was still able to understand what process the OT carry out when assessing what care is needed for the patient when leaving hospital. I wanted to look at another potential user of my product that may need extra support when leaving hospital but may not require carers. I shadowed assessments by a couple of patients hoping to leave hospital in the coming days, and watched patients carry out the tasks require to show they were capable of living independently, going to the toilet, making a cup of tea for instance. The experience was helpful and I was given an information pack of example of assessment made to make sure the patient is living as safely and comfortably as possible.
• Early prototypes and ideas were looked at using tags to identify what product were used daily in your life to allow me to work out what products relative side would want to see where their elderly relative was safe and well, from a small investigation it appears that places change depending on age, someone in there teens as researched picked her phone, laptop, door handle? but asking a those aged 50 decided to place the tags on the house phone nearest the front door, in the kitchen, their mobile and beside their beside table. Although this was only tested on a hand full of participants.

I then went on to talk about my actual idea. A product that would be place in the fridge of the person aged 75+ and would be connected to an identical device in the relatives home. The idea is to monitor the amount of times the fridge is opened in a day to allow the family to make sure their relative is not only eating well but is mobile. Exact information displayed to the family is still a work in progress but for now the simplest example is for each time the door is opened the other device will have a colour represented for instance 3 times is red 7 is green 9 blue but I am aware that this needs work.

I chose the fridge because from talks with the nurses and through notes in my sketchpad looking at all the rooms and from reading various telecare documents I think that nutrition and regular eating is paramount to living healthily, sounds obvious but mental health conditions such as dementia and even certain types of medication make it easy to forget when you have last ate- which is a worry for relatives.

Prototypes were shown and explained. I explained that I had started prototyping shapes last week and focused on objects in the fridge but asking friends to send photos of their fridges to gain some basic forms.

I spoke about how I would record how many times the fridge was opened, and thought about placing the product next to a light source or maybe a new suggestion of using a hall affect sensor and explained the technology that Ali has suggested I used while I was at the arduino workshop.

Next Steps?

More sketching and prototyping, I explained I was lacking inspiration on the prototype front.

Getting to grips with the technology available

Polly explained that it would be nice for the devices to be paired particularly for the degree show. She also advised me to keep in touch with my potential users for feedback on prototypes and to work on scenarios, short prototypes and to not make them just abstract. I was also told to look into the information being displayed and really play about with how the information might be shared. To come up with half a dozen no technical prototypes, and test the level of info needed, whether is be dots, numbers, a dial. We agreed that the three main areas I need to focus on are;

1. Form of the object(s)
2. technology
3. information displayed

I was left feeling quite refreshed to have somebody new overview my project and contribute to areas I was struggling with.