Simplify the Communication for People with Dementia

UX Case StudySeptember 2015 - November 2015

Project Overview

About 1/3 of people with dementia are living at home alone. They might be healthy in body but fail to remember events and important infor-mation such as appointments, medication and nutrition. This creates a stressful situation for the person with dementia and for the family who, besides other worries, receive repeatedly phone calls from the beloved one with dementia with the same questions.

The Process

The Problem

We applied the design thinking method to resolve the problem. First, we conducted literature and user research to empathise with the problem before we defined the design space. After that, we iteratively ideated and conceptualised viable solutions which we evaluated with expert reviews.

Empathise Define Ideate EvaluatePrototype

We conceptualised three solutions. The first solution, StatusGuard, helps the family to get notified if a possible emergency situation occurs e.g. the person has not returned from her walk. The second solution, GetTogether, provides a doorway for people with dementia living alone to escape their loneliness by meeting other people in their age group for social events. The third solution, FrameControl, enhances the commu-nication experience between the person with dementia and her family which in turn makes them feel closer to each other.

The Solution

My Contribution

Responsible Activities

Literature Research

Interviews

PACT

User Personas

MoSCoW

Ideation Sessions

Concept Creation

Scenarios & Storyboards

Information Architecture

Interaction Design

Wireframes & Mockups

Usability Testing

Whiteboard

Post-Its

Pencil and Paper

Sketch

UXPin

Used Design Tools

Role : UX / Interaction Designer

StatusGuard: Interaction Design

GetTogether: Interaction Design

FrameControl: Interaction Design

Empathise

Literature Research

As we were not familiar with the topic, we did a literature research to get an understanding of dementia and its impacts. We read through demen-tia-related research papers, books and online articles. We also collected information on existing solutions and their influences.

User Interviews

With the literature research’s insight, we conducted interviews with dementia researchers, caregivers and people who have people with de-mentia in their personal environment to collect first-hand information.

Dementia is a progressive disorder. About one-third of people with de-mentia live in their own house and would like to stay in their as long as possible. With a good care quality and the right aids, they can have an independent life. Many of the available assistive solutions require the person with dementia to adapt to or actively interact with the product.

Problems: repeatedly asking the same questions; forgetting nutrition, medication and appointments; struggling with paperwork; losing orien-tation, getting lost; falling; not finding things again; neglecting hygiene and cleaning; emotional instability; refusing help;

Assistive Solutions: Door alarms, Night surveillance, Oven guard, Spe-cial calendar and clock, Robots, Medication reminder, pillbox, Special Phones, Panic button, Name pin for clothes, Tracking devices,

Key Insights

PACT

Define

We brainstormed and discussed topics and ideas we want to focus on.

People: Patients, Family Members, Friends, Neighbours and Caregivers

The focus is on elderly people who are living at home alone and are in the beginning to middle stage of dementia. They differ in memory, emo-tions, languages and mental models. Families, friends, neighbours and caregivers differ in age, distance and technology know-how.

Activity: Communication, Daily Habits and Eating

Most activities happen at home and are usually performed in a sequence. Even simple activities can be complex due to dementia. Hence, the solu-tion needs to assist activities and alert in emergency situations.

Context: Patient’s Home

The main place of action will be the living area. Homes can differ in size, number of rooms, accessibility, social context and the surrounding.

Technology: Technology familiar to the patient

As the ability to learn and memorise new things is affected by dementia, familiar technologies should be considered and the interaction reduced to an absolute necessity.

User Personas

Gunn is 72 years old and lives in a small house in Stab-by, Uppsala. She is in the first stage of Alzheimer. She regularly forgets appointments. Sometimes she loses her sense of orientation or for day and time. She often feels lonely and calls her son frequently.

Every morning, Gunn gets up at 7 AM and has breakfast. She uses her stationary phone often to talk with her friends and family. She regu-larly visits her doctor. Her son Frederik visits her at least once a week. She does cleaning and grocery shopping by herself. In the evening, she watches her favourite TV shows and goes to bed at around 10 PM. She is unfamiliar with new technologies such as a smartphone or a computer.

Frederik Jonsson : Gunn’s Son

Gunn Jonsson : Recently Diagnosed Dementia

Frederik is 48 years old. He is married to Annika and they have to children, Anna and Andre. Anna is 20 years old and Andre is 17 years old. Frederik, Annika and An-dre live in Stockholm. Anna studies and lives in Lund. All of them have a smartphone.

Frederik works full time as a bank manager and has to travel around a lot. His wife works also full time as a primary school teacher. Anna and Andre go to high school. Frederik worries about Gunn living by herself in Uppsala. Frederik talks to Gunn a lot and visits her at least once a week.

We created two user personas as a base to ideate and design solutions.

MoSCoW

With the gained know-how around dementia, we prioritised non-func-tional requirements for the designing solutions.

Must have: The technology must seamlessly integrate into the daily life/routine of the person with dementia. Importantly, the technology must be invisible, in other words, it should be embedded into an already ex-isting household object. The solution must be affordable.

Should have: Direct interaction or data input from the person with de-mentia should be avoided. The solution should be monitored and ad-ministrated by the family, relatives or caregivers.

Could have: Family members, relatives or even caregivers could be able to remotely access the solution. Moreover, the solution could be used to connect with other people.

Won’t have: The solution won’t be a “Swiss Army Knife” that solves mul-tiple problems. In contrary, the solution will rather concentrate to solve a specific problem.

The most promising ideas from the ideation sessions were the following:

• Survey the well-being with sensors - Solution 1

• Connecting people for eating and social activity - Solution 2

• Enhance Communication with the family - Solution 3

We created a solution with each of these promising ideas.

Iterative Design

Ideate

The solutions were designed, evaluated and refined in three design iter-ations.

We brainstormed ideas and technologies for viable solutions.

Solution 1 : StatusGuard

This solution reduces the family’s anxiety on the well-being of their be-loved one with dementia. The solution uses sensors with machine learn-ing to detect emergency situations and to alert the family accordingly.

The solution has been installed at Gunn’s house. The system detects that the fridge has not been closed. The system tries to call Gunn, no answer. The system alerts Frederik through the mobile app about the situation.

Normal Day: Gunn wakes up at 7 AM and has breakfast. She follows her usual daily routine and goes to bed at around 10 PM.

Unusual Morning: The system notices that Gunn did not wake up. The system waits a little while before it calls Gunn. As she does not pick up the phone, Frederik gets notified about the situation. He calls Gunn, no answer. He alerts her doctor.

Scenario

Storyboards

User Flow

The system cannot assess a situation with an absolute certainty, there-fore the wordings of the alerts are chosen carefully. Additionally, the colour coding of the status should help the family to instinctively iden-tify the severity:

• Green means that everything is OK and according to the daily rou-tine.

• Orange indicates that the system has not yet received the usual activ-ity but at the moment no action is required.

• Red denotes a high probability for a dangerous situation and imme-diate actions are urged.

Design

Solution 2 : GetTogether

People with dementia have a caregiver who visits them once a day and provides them with meals. However, many elder people with or even without dementia spend their mealtimes alone at home and feel lonely.

This solution uses the Telia healthcare platform to connect those people for regular get-togethers. The caregivers organise the transportation and supervise the events.

Gunn has a profile on the Telia healthcare platform which Frederik maintains. Upon consultation with Gunn, he registers her for regular group lunch. On the chosen days, the supervising caregiver reminds Gunn by phone about today’s get together and the pickup time.

Gunn is registered for today’s lunch. The caregiver tells her the pick up time. Gunn gets picked up on time and brought to the lunch place. Gunn has a very lovely lunch. At the end, she is brought back home safely.

Scenario

Storyboard

User Flow

The user interface is, even though it might not be used by Gunn herself, simple to use and only displays the essential information. The colours are based on the Telia icon to provide a consistent look and feel. The col-our opacity indicates the currently booked meals without losing much contrast.

The top section shows the basic background information on the person, in our case it is Gunn. The lower part contains the configuration and details of the individual GetTogethers. We used the grid of equal design pattern to display all the available events simultaneously. Moreover, the titles of the events are aligned at the top to further enhance skimming.

Design

Solution 3 : FrameControl

This solution enhances the communication experience of the person with dementia with her family. More importantly, the solution should help both parties feel closer to each other. Additionally, it has features to reduce repeated calls with the same question.

This solution links a digital frame with an ordinary stationary phone. The digital frame displays the caller’s details, enables video calling and has a pinboard. The family can post reminder notes and share photos on the pinboard.

Before Frederik left with his family for their vacation, Frederik has set up the digital frame next to Gunn’s stationary phone and has installed

Scenario

Gunn calls Frederik to ask about his next visit. He tells that they are coming on Sunday and subsequently pins a note with the visit details on her digital frame’s pinboard. Later in the day, she picks up the telephone receiver to call him for the same reason, but she sees the note, smiles and puts down the receiver.

Storyboard

the FrameControl app on his smartphone. While on vacation Frederik calls Gunn on her stationary phone. He tells her about the vacation and shows some pictures through the FrameControl on her digital frame. Frederik starts a video call with Gunn to show her the hotel and his fam-ily. She feels close to her family. After the call, Frederik pins a note on her digital frame’s pinboard about her tomorrow’s doctor appointment.

Digital Frame: The layout is kept simple. Only one information at the time is shown to reduce distraction and cognitive load on the person with dementia.

FrameControl Application: The digital frame‘s content is mirrored at the top to orientate the user. We used the design pattern clear entry point and grid of equal for the buttons to make them easily accessible and equally important. Only two dull colours are used to avoid distraction and to keep the user focused on the content and actions.

Design