DisplayCare
Course and Timeline: Design Research Studio Fall 2023, Product Development Sprint Spring 2024
Role: Design Researcher, Product Design Engineer
Team Members (Fall 2023): Alex Lansing, Hannah Hachamovitch, Madeline Farace, Tony Xiong
In Fall 2023, my team and I were posed a central research question:
How can technology help caregivers complete their collaborative tasks with greater ease?
With this in mind, we explored the caregiver and care-receiver relationship to identify potential design opportunities that can solve issues a care-giver may face during their daily duties.
Initial Research
Through secondary research we were able to study what products already exist in the caregiving space and the well-documented issues faced by caregivers while also understanding where existing products were falling short.
Primary Research
Then I led a series of dScout interviews in our first round of primary research which highlighted tensions between the desires of the care-receiver and the knowledge and activities of the caregiver. While care-receivers wanted a sense of autonomy and self-sufficiency, caregivers wanted a sense of security in knowing their family member was well cared for.
The design was formulated to allow a user to both hang it on the wall or prop it on a table using the kickstand. The stylus was weighted and wide-bodied to allow usage by care-receivers who may have reduced fine motor skills. Lastly, the digital interface was created with large, and readable buttons for ease of use by both caregivers and care-receivers.
The physical interface is simple with an on switch and the stylus attaches magnetically to the top of the frame.
I opted for a layered design with a multi-part frame acting as a sandwich around the electrical components and touchscreen. This allowed for ease of manufacturing and repairability if the electrical components developed any faults.
Once these details were finalized, I began to create higher fidelity models and renderings of my final prototype to gain definition of how this would be built.
Design Refinement Study - Writing Surface & CMF
I also conducted a study to understand users' preferences for how the writing surface feels during use as I wanted the experience to feel as natural and familiar as possible.
Lastly, I conducted a CMF study with elderly individuals to gain an understanding of how they would want the product to look, feel, and seamlessly fit into their home.
Design Refinement Study - Ergonomics
I then conducted an ergonomics study on an elderly individual with Parkinson's to gain an understanding of the form the stylus component of the product would optimally take for use by a care-receiver.
Concept Refinement
The first step was a form study for this product to gain an understanding of where and how users may interact with this. I created some low-fidelity renderings of possible forms and interviewed elderly individuals in their home to see how it may fit into their space.
Final Concept Direction
Once measured against our refined design requirements we came to the initial concept of the DisplayCare.
The DisplayCare is a smart calendar that is designed to mimic the often used method of a whiteboard calendar in a care-receiver’s home. In this case the care-receiver would write down the information using the stylus on the DisplayCare and this would be digitized and synced with the caregivers phone allowing the caregiver to keep track of the entries made by the care-receiver while the latter maintains their sense of control and autonomy through a clear and familiar system.
Initial Concepts
This led to a set of initial concepts which approached our design requirements in a variety of ways. Through a second round of primary research on dScout, we were able to conduct evaluative research with caregivers and gain a better understanding of the key product needs and benefits.
How might we create a technology that balances Familiarity, Function, and Ease of Use for caregivers and tech averse care-receivers?
In Spring 2024, I led the second half of this project where I refined, iterated, researched, and finalized the product concept and development spec to be pitched in front of our advisory board.
After developing the high fidelity prototype, I presented this product to our program advisory board and received feedback for fine-tuning the feature set.
Through this project I was able to develop and refine my skills in design research, concept exploration, usability studies, and product development.
Insights
This tension expanded into three major insights:
Insight 1: Care-receivers rely on familiar, clear-cut systems and products that preserve their sense of confidence and dignity, even if it means more effort while rejecting new technologies, however beneficial, because they threaten this emotional anchor by imposing steep, unwelcome learning curves that disrupt their established autonomy, control, and rhythm of care.
Insight 2: While caregivers’ most important tasks involve managing and organizing various responsibilities, documents, and tasks for their care-receivers they also prove to be the most challenging due to the decentralized management systems that rise as a result of collaborating with their care-receivers.
Insight 3: While caregivers need access to a breadth of information about their care-receivers to stay knowledgeable about all relevant care details, both caregivers and care-receivers desire simplified displays of information to make the content digestible at a glance.
“I think [the calendar] is perfect…We have a physical calendar in in our kitchen… [and we] write down all of our schedules and appointments there… I feel like this [calendar] is really nice because, if we're out of the house and not constantly looking at [it], we'll be reminded of all other appointments.”
- Saba (8:49)
I do think that treating them like they are an adult, like they are a human being, is…a really important thing a lot of people tend to forget…we work together to accomplish the same goal of protecting her safety”
- Sophia (38:00)
“Having a full calendar on there for my dad would be really overwhelming for him. [I would like to be] able to…have different views. So, a caretaker [could see] the full week…But…[I could] keep it really simple for my dad and…show it by day.”
- Carrie (9:35)
These insights highlighted the area of opportunity in the intersection of Familiarity, Ease of Use, and Functionality: