「Orange」Project 老年人生活解决方案
Project Lead：Yundi Ge Member：Yuwei Ran/ Mengyu Wang/ Yunle Chen/ Xinyu Du
ORANGE: “How to promote mobile phone usage in seniors?”
Idea
The senior may feel challenging to adjust to new technology; the icons, buttons and the tangled information are making people frustrating. Pineapple is working on promoting mobile usage for seniors by using our senior solution. Through combining the health care and the digital devices, we can inspire more interaction between seniors and mobile devices. We also aim to overcome elderly’s fear of using mobile devices by simplifying the process of applying mobile phone. Designing the humanistic product and improving seniors’ lives is what Pineapple is making efforts to.
GOALS
We should let the elderly knows that using mobile phones can bring many benefits to their lives.
Secondly, we are trying to eliminate barriers between older people and smart devices.
What’s more, we try to increase intergeneration bonding through the use of smartphone.
Issues
•The first difficulty is that the operation is complicated and it is hard to be proficient in using it.
•The second one is that it is very easy to forget to use their smart phones. They are not ready to get used to the life with a smart phone.
Barriers & Solutions
subjective barriers
technological barriers
situational barriers
We try to eliminate the barrier by simplifying the UI, larger the fonts and put instructions on every touch point that seniors are using. Our app is free to download and our devices are also affordable for the normal public.
Our Senior Solution Product
There are 2 parts in our project.
The first one is the Senior Beacon Kit, including 7 small beacons and 3 large beacons. Small beacons can attach to a pill bottle or a walking stick. And the large beacons can attach to the doorway or bed or sofa.
The second part is the app. We did our research and create a super elder-friendly UI. It can help our users to install the beacon and connect to the app in one minute.
What is a Beacon?
Beacon is a self-powered, tiny, wireless sensor can be easily installed or apply on everything in your daily life. The Beacon itself is able to send information to "responsive devices" within a certain distance depending on its location and function. As for this technology, it is actually an Apple protocol technology that already existed. You can use it in a retail store to see the detail of a pair of shoes. Or you can place it in an office to create a floor decoration plan. Estimote company is the one with the most mature physical product. However, Estimote is also just beacons that not fully developed with any specific purpose. Which means, only if you know what is the role beacons gonna play, and you rebuild a system and coding for it. Or it can not be functional. So in this case, we create our Pineapple Senior Solution by using this technology and Estimote product and recreating some function based on this iBeacon Technology.
How does our product work? (INfographic intro)
Sofa beacon
Mr.Rick has chronic backache. The doctor suggests that he should walk more instead of sitting. However 'Forget Things' is so common among seniors . When he sits down and starts watch TV, he always forget the time. So we put a beacon under the sofa and set a 60 mins Aviod -sitting reminder. One day, Mr.Rick starts to watch TV in the morning. The beacon under the sofa can feel him sit on the sofa and transmit the signal to the phone. The app start to count down time as long as the beacon can sense him sitting on the sofa. His favorite show may last an hour and a half and he totally forget he should not sit for that long. So 60 minutes later, he will receive a notification. It says : Hey Mr.Rick! Time to stand up and walk for a while! When he tap the notification, it will lead him to this screen that can remind him to leave the sofa. And maybe he will just Strech a lit bit in the house or walk out for some fresh air.
Doorway Beacon & Walking Stick Beacon
When Mr.Rick is approaching near the doorway, the doorway beacon can sense him and send a notification to his phone. This is a reminder to tell him not to forget anything. For example, keys, wallet, umbrella, medicine...ect. Then he will check that he have brought everything he need and leave. And by the way this function is actually inspired by our grandparents. They always forget something when they go out and I have to hang a whiteboard on the door and remind them to bring everything. As for the walking stick beacon, it will record your steps and encourage you to keep going when you walk, . Their adult child or nursing staff can also monitor these data.
Medical Beacon
Since Mr.Rick have chronic backache and have to take pills. We can also place the beacon on the pill bottle in order to remind him of taking a medicine. Or he can also place it on a hymatomanometer to help him monitor his blood pressure status.