CO-design
We decided to split up the co-design phase into three distinct parts as seen below. Starting out with getting a broad overview of the context and issues, selecting key problems, exploring those in detail, and finally start ideating on a few of those key problems.
User context exploration
Getting a better understanding of the context and issues involved
Simulation activities
Gain a thorough understanding of the details of specific problems
Ideation and conceptualization
Collaboratively come up with possible solution (directions) for the problems previously found
User context exploration
Day in the life
For this activity, the participant was asked to explain in detail what he does during an average day, and the related problems/difficulties with these activities, using a timeline to make notes. This introduced us to several problematic activities the participant deals with during his average day.
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A timeline was made and sent to the participant
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The participant filled in the timeline
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The timeline was analyzed with the participant during a meeting
Methods
Recurring problems/difficulties:
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not able to walk or stand for long periods of time
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Pain and reduced stability
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Performs all activities seated if possible
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Difficulty grabbing and holding
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E.g. knives and cups
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Difficulty opening his left hand
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Has to concentrate hard to open it
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Two-handed activities are hard due to low dexterity in the left hand
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E.g. hanging clothes, lining up his coat on a hanger, peeling potatoes
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Results
hOME SAFARI
The home safari is a variation of the “camera” activity mentioned in the “co-design methods” section of our research. For the home safari the participant was asked to take photos of his home situation and explain the struggles he faces with products or spaces in the photo’s. This helped us understand the limitations and opportunities of the environment in which our design would be used.
Methods
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Participant was asked to take pictures of his home:
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The kitchen
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The living room
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The corridor
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Participant was asked to take pictures of any aid tools he already made use of
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The pictures were shortly discussed with the participant during a meeting
Results
Kitchen
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The pictures show the Home Safari outcome.
The most right picture shows the hallway, specifically the way the coats are hung. This gives us an insight in what way we could redesign in what way the coats are hung.
The second picture shows the kitchen. Our participant spends a considerable amount of time in the kitchen. Now we have a clear picture of what the kitchen environment looks like, the space he has and the options we have.
The last picture shows the dining table. He often walks here from the kitchen to have breakfast, lunch and dinner. The picture shows the chairs and the amount of space he has. We can use this information in our design process.
The environment:
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Cuts food on the table and walks 10m to the kitchen
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No high cupboards
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Keeps his jackets unzipped when on a hanger
The tools:
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Uses an abrasive pad to hold food when he peels and cuts
Living room
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Corridor
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tHE 'RATING TABLE'
From the previous methods, the problematic activities were put in the table below and sent to the participant to fill in. The results are shown below. From this we gathered that the green marked activities were going to be potential focus points in designing, since these were marked the highest in the table, and repeatedly mentioned during the meetings. The activities were: walking/sitting, peeling food, holding/gripping and hanging his coat.
After discussing the results with our participant we ultimately decided to substitute walking/sitting activities with holding/gripping activities as the participant expressed greater interest in the latter and as he said his custom shoe and cane should not be improved upon.
(Floris, 2021)
In addition to the activities table, we created a similar rating table for his dependencies. From this, we gathered that the grip cloth for cooking and his therapeutic handball could be improved.
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Coat hanging simulation
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Wrapped our left hand with gauze like a mitten
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Consciously limited our arm movement
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Tried hanging and zipping a coat
Result
The process became very cumbersome and unintuitive. Not having full grip on the left hand required some uncomfortable movements to be made in order to insert the hager into the sleeve. This made it frustrating and slow to handle.
Participant's input
The participant commented that he was satisfied with the accuracy of the simulation apart from some minor details in the way we positioned our thumb and the size of the knife used.
simulation activities
The simulations were performed for the problematic activities to gain a better first hand understanding of the participant’s difficulties.These simulations helped us empathize with the participant’s problems and sparked our creativity in developing solutions.
For the simulations we will impair ourselves to approximate the situation of the participant and will perform the three problematic activities. These simulations will be recorded and discussed with the participant to see if the simulation was accurate to the problems the participant faces. These simulations will help us empathize with the participant’s problems and spark our creativity for solutions.
Potato peeling simulation
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Wrapped our left hand in a thick layer of gauze and a latex glove
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Reduced tactile feedback, dexterity and gripping strength
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Coated our hand in oil
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Further, reduce gripping ability
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Peeled a potato with a knife
Result
As intended the potato became much more difficult to peel. Specifically, finding a good place to grip the potato became almost impossible. As well as maintaining a comfortable amount of pressure for the duration of the peeling process.
The black box method
Once the main problems were clear to us, we sparked the creativity of our participant by performing a black box activity to identify possible solution directions. This activity made use of sketches describing the three problematic activities with the addition of a hypothetical black box which would help the participant perform the activity. Once he was shown the sketches, the participant was asked what he broadly envisioned the black box would do to help him and what characteristics he thinks it should have. This activity gave a broad idea of the participant's expectations and preferences.
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Results
For the potato peeling:
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No automatic machine (loss of independence)
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Should not require much force
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Food must not get ruined (nail board)
Jacket:
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Must hang neatly
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A new hanger with a smoother texture
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The coats and clothes must not need changing
Carrying / grabbing:
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Has to directly tackle the issue (his hand)
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Should still be able to do things himself (no loss in independence)
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No complicated technology
These results became our preliminary design requirements for ideation.
Spark creativity
Updated design challenge
Through the co-design activities, we were able to narrow the scope of our design vision to concentrate on his hand specifically.
“To create a widely accessible and adaptable product to increase the participants' independence by reducing his left-hand's disability”
Ideation
After having identified the most important struggles the participant encounters on a daily basis and his initial requirements for ideal design, we started independently ideating on rough solutions. The sketching phase of ideation was not live with the participant as he expressed a dislike for long meetings, however, all sketches were presented and discussed with him during regular meetings. It is important to note that we deliberately chose to ideate in several different problem directions. We noticed in our meetings with the participants that it was hard for him to make educated decisions without visual materials, so we decided to first come up with visual material in several different directions, only to then make the choice for developing into a more specific direction.
The ideation happened in several rounds, each time with discussion and feedback of the participant in between.
Peeling products
The first ideas for products that aid in peeling food can be seen here. Different ideas include ergonomic peelers, food clamps and slicers.
round 1
round 2
Gripping ideation
The first ideas for products that aid in grabbing and holding can be seen here. Different ideas included suction cups on a glove, a grabbing tool and elastic strings on sides of the glove.
round 1
round 2
Clothes hanging ideation
The first ideas for products that aid in grabbing and holding can be seen here. Different ideas included suction cups on a glove, a grabbing tool and elastic strings on sides of the glove.
round 1
round 2
Conceptualization
During this phase, the similar ideation solutions the peeling, gripping and coat problems were combined into different 4 concepts. All these concepts were shown and explained during a meeting with the participant, and the feasibility was discussed.
The glove
The concept of the glove has elastic bands going from the top of each finger towards the wrist. This mechanism pulls the fingers upwards, which flexes the hand. Because of this, the user needs less focus to flex the hand. When the user brings the fingers inwards to grab something, the tension of the elastics works as a guideline to the user. It makes grabbing objects more pleasant. The materials of this concept are a combination of elastics, fabric and 3D printed plastic. The tension on each finger can be adjusted separately by simply changing the position of the elastic on the bottom.
Feedback: (Floris, 2021)
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Found this concept to be the most interesting
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Liked that it tacked the hand issue directly
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Was weary of its feasibility
the Clamping peeler
The goal of clamping peeler is to have a board that holds an item in place for a user with one hand. The board works by having four spring-loaded sliders converge at the centre. The user then places the item to peel in the centre. A button press allows the grippers which are attached to sliders to place a firm grip onto the object. This allows any user with one hand to peel an item easily.
Feedback: (Floris, 2021)
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Found the idea interesting
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Discarded the idea as he had found a new simpler solution after the black box activity
The automatic coat hanger
The automatic coat hanger is designed to make hanging a coat easier by automatically inserting the arms of the coat hanger in the sleeves of the jacket.
The user inserts the hanger into the collar of the coat, places the hanger on the bar and pulls down. By pulling down on the hanger the arms fold out and extend into the coat arms. The mechanism is healed in place by the weight of the coat itself. Once the coat is lifted off the hanger resets by folding in again.
Feedback: (Floris, 2021)
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Liked the concept
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Was worried it would take a while to get used to the mechanism
The Magnetic zipper
The magnetic zipper is designed with the intention to make it applicable to as many coats as possible, without having to damage or change the coat. In our design, on both sides of the zipper, a magnetic strip is slid over the zipper teeth. One magnetic strip attracts the other one, so when inserted, the coat will easily open and close. All the user needs to do is pull on it to open, or guide it to close.
Feedback: (Floris, 2021)
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Thought the idea was innovative
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Was not sure it would be sturdy enough
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Feasibility
The participant ultimately selected the glove concept as, while it was ranked lowest on feasibility, he believed it would be the most helpful and interesting to develop. (Floris, 2021)
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Final concept choice
The chosen concept was the glove. The aim of the concept glove is to give the fingers of the user some resistance through tension when gripping. It’s been proven that having a slight resistance can help stroke patients with gripping by making it easier to vary the force applied. The glove will have individual elastic tensioners attached to each finger. These elastic bands will be attached to the wrist of the glove. The user can then adjust these to their desired tension.
References
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Floris, Personal Communication, 2021