Assistive App & Device
Buddy
📝Research Paper Published • Classroom Project • Intellectual Disability
Project Info
Time: 4 weeks
Project handler:
Lavanya Arya
Type:
Classroom Project
Industry
E-Healthcare
E-Learning
Assistive Technology
Role
UX
UI
Strategy
Tools
Miro
Figma
Illustrator
This is a classroom project with the brief to Design a solution that helps to resolve the problems faced by any one of the disabled community amongst the disabilities listed by the Govt. of India. I chose Intellectual disability with an aim of delivering a way of managing and tracking ID Child’s growth by parents for holistic growth.
Update: Research paper authored by me, titled "Intellectually Disabled Child Holistic Growth Management Platform: Voice Interaction and Scheduling" was published by IEEE. Read here
The Problem
Coming across this disability in my family, I observed that the ID(Intellectual Disabled) child experienced a lot of problems and one of them being unable to express and manage without the parent. When the parent is working, this problem affects the child's growth and assistance required to understand daily life activities, reasoning, social skills, etc.
How might we deliver a way of managing and tracking intellectual disabled child's progress for working parents who are unable to spend quality time with them, in order to have uncompromised holistic growth.
Solution
The child wears the Buddy smart pendant based on voice and touch screen interaction.
The smart pendant connects with the Buddy app user and syncs the account user, ID child information & schedule. The easy to use smart pendant makes conversation with the child to complete the tasks.
Smart Pendant
The scheduled task is shown incoming on the screen which the child will see as a gamified & simplified version.
The task requires simple cognition skills and touch screen operating abilities. The voice assistant directs the child the actions to take and give hints when the child is taking extra time to respond.
Simplified Tasks
ID children are often suspect to abuse by caretakers at home. Hence compromising their safety. The parents are also not able to track any negligence or safety concerns faced by the child.
Hence throughout the schedule the Buddy smart pendant showcases live updates. It highlights alerts, video, audio and schedule based notifications.
Live Updates
Understanding the Problem
I started off with finding problems faced by ID children. And from my personal experience of handling an ID child (family member), I encountered that how the child felt emotionally drained and left-out without the parent.
The statistics reflected that how most ID children are not sent to schools and home schooled instead.
The responsibility is given to the caretaker to handle the working parent's child's day-to-day tasks.
The Daily Scenario
When the working parent leaves the child at home with the caretaker the learning gets compromised due to the limited teaching capacities of the caretaker. The child also grows dependent on the caretaker. The outside exposure and physical activity also gets limited.
Current Solutions
The current solutions were mostly app based solutions and were focused around Scheduling, Tracking & Learning. While the various areas focused were Health, Daily activity, Cognition and Life skills.
The app has activities as learning modules based on self care, reasoning & social skills.
The parent can create a schedule for the ID child by adding different kind of activities given within the application. The parent can also schedule tasks for dedicated time period.
Creating Schedule
Insights
A contextual inquiry was conducted with my family member having ID child. The child was observed in their natural environment, at home. The different areas of observations included self-care tasks, learning pattern: visual and auditory, emotional support, fitness and mental health.
Current Scenario
The various gaps in the daily scenario were spotted through sequential model. Therefore the risk was posed to child's growth due to dependence on caretaker. This also lead to the finding for the need of back-to-back communication between parent and caretaker to manage schedule.
Societal Impact & Solution Objectives
It was reflected from desk research that the ID child learning solutions were only some well solutions known by common public like apps, special schools, home schooling. The doctors were only approached for serious health issues.
Persona & Journey Map
The current problems, needs and motivations of ID child and parents helps to understand the opportunity areas for the new solution. The app based solution can have trial based model for parents. Adding a trackable progress would help the parent to plan schedule better.
Task Card Sorting & Flow
The tasks were based on the stakeholders who'll be performing the tasks: Parent and ID Child. The tasks are further divided based on category of tasks.
Testing the Concepts
With the help of paper prototype testing, the app was tested with a special school teacher. She recommended not giving complete control options to ID child as it might lead to confusion in early stage. She also suggested hint feature when child takes more time to respond.
Next Steps
For better usability, the solution can be developed using sensors and the real-time effectiveness can be tested with ID child and parent. The solution implementation funnel can also be developed using business and branding strategies for making this a well-known solution.
Solution Objectives
UI Guide
Based on the learning app based solution, the Moodboard inspiration was drawn from learning applications. The brand name 'Buddy' suggests companionship with the child.
The objectives are based on observations made from user and market research.
The solution is app-based solution that connects parents & child through different devices.
