Around The Block
Design a service that disrupts the current ownership economy by empowering people and building community resilience.
Problem
Despite a majority of seniors wishing to age in place rather than in a care facility, home based care in Canada is drastically underfunded. The resulting limitations are felt most by multicultural seniors. Our challenge was to equip them with the tools needed to age in place while maintaining their cultural identity and fostering community connection.
Process
Through in-depth field work, our team conducted interviews, surveys, and cultural probes with stakeholders. We designed a service blueprint, a business model canvas, prototypes, user journeys and personas. Narration and storytelling was a key element in the presentation of our concepts. Through our winning residency at Philips, we developed plans for user testing, UX/UI interface, and an investors pitch.
Solution
Around the block is a digital service that connects multicultural seniors with Personal Support Workers and group activities in their area, matching for specific linguistic and cultural needs. By encouraging culturally connected care and community engagement, the service supports seniors’ ability to thrive while ageing in place.
My Role
In this team of 5 industrial/service design student, I collaborated on all aspects of the project with a focus on storytelling, narration, user research, testing, and synthesis. I worked closely on script writing, designing the cultural probes, and helping to uncover themes and insights through affinity mapping. Through constant iteration and refinement, it was important for me to take a systems approach by asking key questions for reframing various complex problems and empathizing with our user group.
