Created mock-ups for an in-home display showing health data from wearables and sensors for older adults.
Project Overview.
With a rapidly growing older adult population, it is anticipated that healthcare systems, including supportive personnel like personal health aides (PHAs), will have challenges managing healthcare for this population.
Studies have also found that older adults prefer to age in place, making the role of PHAs increasingly important. Stanford’s HP+DS lab aims to build an intelligent home sensing system that will support older adults and PHAs by allowing older adults to manage their health and prevent hospitalizations.
My Contribution.
I developed a medium fidelity prototype of the Health Insights Display that was shown at a workshop with older adults and PHAs. There was notable feedback elicited surrounding the impact of the proposed technology from what I developed.
After conducting a literature review, became aware of the major pain points that impact both older adults and PHAs during in-home care.
Based on the technology that the HP+DS lab plans to develop and a literature review, decided to prototype an interface for an ambient display with an integrated voice assistant.
Ideation process was focused on mapping out who user was, what it would be used for, what the item was, and where it would be placed. Then moved on to sketch out the features and functionality of the display.
Started out with a simple prototype (image on right) to move sketches to a higher fidelity.
After conducting an expert analysis survey on initial prototype, adjusted designs to incorporate their suggestions (image on left).
Designs were included in a workshop with PHAs to elicit the ethical implications within the scope of their work that the proposed technology might result in.
Screens were successful in starting productive conversations around the sensor data being collected.
As I finished the project, I realized that the prototype I made would essentially be beginning the need-finding stages of a bigger design process — creating the actual technology.
Having a small role in a bigger project that is ongoing was a new perspective for me, since I usually complete class projects in such a more constrained time period. I also learned a lot about the field of in-home healthcare.
I found that the Design Thinking Framework worked well within a formal academic setting, and was welcomed by the researchers I worked with!
