Challenge
Approximately 7 million adults are long-distance care-givers to their elderly parents. They are constantly on edge not knowing how their parents are doing. The adult children need of some type of reassurance that their parents are doing just fine, without relocating to live near them or constantly checking on them.
Solution
An intergenerational living center where the independent seniors and college students live. Each senior resident is paired with a college student who is their "pal". The student checks in on the senior resident multiple times a week and posts photos, videos, and updates about them via the Generatio mobile app. The family of the senior resident can view these posts and updates, while having constant reassurance their loved one is doing just fine.
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It all started with one question:
How can I re-design the future of senior living?
Stakeholder Mapping
As I examined the question, I immediately started to map out the stakeholders who would be involved. I decided that my prime user group would be retirees, anyone from the age of 50 and above. This is because if I’m designing the future of senior living then that age group would be the senior citizens of the future. In turn, I mapped out who and what indirectly and directly affects this group through a stakeholder map.
Interviews
Now that I decided who my primary user group was, I wanted to conduct human-centered data driven research to fuel my project. I reached out to 9 different adults ranging from the ages of 49-90, all at different stages in there life. I created an interview protocol with questions that revolved around activities, objects, interactions, and environments. Each interview lasted around 1.5 to 2.5 hours
The interviews produced 521 data points. The data points consisted of all the answers to the interview questions, other information they disclosed to me, and observations I recorded during the interview. I grouped them together by each interviewee and analyzed each one.
Once going through each interviewee’s data points and understanding who the interviewees really were, I created personas. These 6 personas represented the interviewees along with their goals, motivations, and frustrations they were dealing with.
Insight Development
The personas gave me ideas of who I was designing for. Now I needed to find insights that would lead me to a design solution for the future of senior living. I decided to affinitize the 521 post it notes into different 5 groups; users, activities, interactions, environments, and objects. This allowed me to start seeing patterns through commonalities and trends.
Some interesting commonalities started to emerge through each category. But, I felt too constrained by having the four distinct categories and decided to affinitize all the 521 data points without having any restrictions and see what would emerge.
This time affinitizing lead to interesting insights with many different groups. Distinct insights that caught my attention were:
Out of these three insights, the one that really resonated with me was the constant concern if their elderly parent is okay. I decided to conduct secondary research on this topic through articles and studies and found that:
7 million adults are long distant care-givers to their elderly parent.
This statistic supported what my interviewees disclosed to me. I decided to focus on creating a design solution tailored to this insight. But first I wanted to see what others thought about this topic.
Workshops
The workshop I designed consisted of explaining my process thus far and giving the workshop participants the same question I began with; “How can you design the future of senior living?” The first one was with two of my interviewees.
The second workshop was with a group of M.F.A Service Design students at Savannah College of Art and Design.
Design Opportunity
Each workshop generated innovative ideas. At the end of the second workshop we ranked the most feasible solutions to the problem:
As I went into this project, I knew I wanted a solution that was out side of the box yet feasible. That is why I thought the most effective solution to the problem was an intergenerational living center. Both college students and seniors can live there. The college student will act as the liaison for checking up on the senior, and notifying their child on how they are doing.
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The SOLUTION
GENERATIO living: WHere generations live together and
thrive as a community
our mission
To provide an inclusive living community that promotes companionship between both generations.
Our vision
Is to co-create an exchange of value between each generation and provide reassurance to family members that the residents are doing just fine.
Generatio living website
GENERATION mobile application
Generatio
Provides all the reassurance the family needs. Download the app as soon as your loved one moves into Generatio Living and get weekly updates about their well-being, through their pal.
Easy account setup
Create an account by simply entering in the birth date of your loved one living in Generatio Living to stay up to date about their well-being.
reassurance
All updates their pal posts is seen on the home page. Click on the post and read more, while having the ability to like, comment, and share with friends and family.
Keep in touch
The Generatio App is a platform to message your friends and family, now everyone is on the same page about how your loved one is doing.
wireframes for mobile application
Service Offering
Generatio Living’s core service is an intergenerational living center for both college kids and independent seniors. What makes Generatio Living so different from any other housing, is the community. Each resident is paired with another of a different generation. Both the old and young pair interact with one another multiple times a week. The college student writes about the senior and posts updates, pictures, and videos to the Generatio mobile application. The family of the senior has access to the Gneratio App and can view all the posts. Now the family has reassurance that their loved ones are doing just fine on their own.
Service Encounters Map
This service encounter map depicts the adult child’s journey and each touchpoint they interact with the service in a whole; from the beginning all the way to when they stop using the service.
Storyboard
Business Model Canvas
When creating living facility, it’s was important to account for all the necessary resources and financials needed in order to make the service viable. The business model canvas lists what is needed for the service to function such as the revenue and cost structure.
THANK YOU!
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MY CONTRIBUTIONS
Personal project during Service Design Network Atlanta Internship
TIMEFRAME
10 Weeks