Ding-Dang
做 伙 叮 噹
An in-home rehabilitation app designed for elders
Collaborate with
NCCU
Department of Advertising│石羽 劉佩姍 邱媛彣
NCCU
Department of Radio & Television│夏圓
NCCU
Department of International Business│鄭致彥
Overview
The problem of aging and declining birthrate is making in-home healthcare more and more difficult. According to our research and observation, Taiwanese elders often lack exercise and tend not to rehabilitate at home even if they are required to do so by their physical therapists. The main reason we found is that doing in-home rehabilitation is too boring for those elders, given that there may be no one there to accompany or supervise them. Therefore, we designed an iPad app specifically for elders to help them exercise and rehabilitate at home, and their physical therapists can also monitor their health status through this app.
My Role
User research
Wireframe design
Prototype design
Phase 1. Brainstorming
At first, we have no idea how a digital application can probably help a Taiwanese elder, so we start by brainstorming what kinds of problems may elder people face. We then concluded our ideation into 3 main directions:
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The problem of going outdoor and meeting friends
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The problem of controlling diet
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The problem of rehabilitating at home
After the discussion, we decided to dive into the rehabilitation part as it has not yet been commonly solved by digital approaches.
Phase 2. User research
We conducted 4 interviews, focusing on 60-70 years old elders who need rehabilitation. The interview questions we designed aimed to understand the lifestyle, rehabilitation approaches and the usage of digital devices of those interviewees.
After the interviews, here are some insights we gained:
Bore: Repeating the same motion makes rehabilitation boring.
Laziness: Even if they understand the importance of rehabilitation, it is still difficult for them to keep exercise or rehabilitation regularly.
Loneliness: They hope that someone can accompany them while rehabilitating.
Difficulty: An intuitive and simple digital app is expected as they often think that digital devices are too complicated for them.
Motivation: The motivation of using a rehabilitation app: intuitive user interface > entertainment > social > authoritative endorsement
We used a persona to represent our target user, concluded by the interview results and user insights.
Phase 3. Ideation
Functional map
First, we started another brainstorming and came up with 30 possible functions that our product may needed.
Second, we reorganized those functions according to their importance and purpose. In this stage, we also found that another management app for the physical therapists may be necessary.
After the ideation, here are the preliminary ideas we defined for our product:
AR exercise: To make in-home rehabilitation interesting.
Multiplayer mode: To reduce the loneliness while rehabilitating at home.
Physical therapists monitoring: To monitor the rehabilitation status of users.
* Our idea came from the AR exercise game on TikTok
Storyboard
A storyboard was also used for demonstrating the usage scenario.
Phase 4. Low fidelity prototype and testing
Low fidelity prototype
User testing
An iPad and a 13-inch laptop were used for imitating the real usage scenario. We chose the bigger devices instead of a mobile phone as it’s interface could be too small for elders.
A 90-years-old man and a 77-year-old woman were tested, and both of them were living on their own.
Phase 5. High fidelity prototype and testing
High fidelity prototype
After the low fidelity prototype testing, we revised some functions and interface designs and then created the high-fidelity prototype using Adobe XD and Sketch. At the same time, we decided to change our device from iPad to TV, which was easier and more familiar for elders to use.
Management app for physical therapists
The physical therapists can create the rehabilitation plan and monitor the rehabilitation status of their patients, also our main users, through the other management app we specifically designed for therapists.
User testing
The same users in the low fidelity test were still being invited for the high-fidelity test, so that we could see whether our adjustments were helpful to the users or not.
The next step
After the two user testings, we concluded some functions to be improved, such as the Ding-Dang point, the video storage function and the AR exercise detection. We still need more user testing to further improve our product. At the other hand, we hope to communicate with both the physical therapists and their patients, or even the hospitals, to improve the management app for therapists.
