Breaking Loneliness

Tags: Service Design; User Research; Prototyping

Date: Jan 2019 - May 2019

Duration: 15 weeks

Team Size: 5 (mixed background)

"Breaking Loneliness" is a service design project in which a solution was developed for making tenants of a dementia care facility perceive a lower amount of loneliness. The project was done as part of a university course on service design with the aim of giving us a grip on how service design could be practically applied to a real-world problem. The project was conducted by me as well as four other students and ran over the span of 3 months

Design

The final service concept, called "daily tasks", was a description of how the facility caretakers should work so as to systematically involve the tenants in daily chores such as cooking, washing, and cleaning. The concept is described in the storyboard below

Daily Tasks - Storyboard

1. Chores are planned by the staff

2. Staff member decides in what chore a tenant should be involved

3. When the chore is to be carried out, the tenant is invited

4. The staff explains to the tenant that they need help with something

5. The chore is carried out by the tenant, with necessary supervision and help from the staff

6. The tenant carries out the chore all the way until it is finished

7. The staff thanks the tenant for helping out

8. Tenant feels that he has contributed

9. The staff evaluates the impact that the activity had on the tenant

Insights

The concept was derived from insights about the tenant situation that was generated during research and prototyping. Although the concept design was valuable to the challenge owner, the insights and knowledge about factors that influence loneliness was an equally important result to hand over.

Design Process

The design process was divided into four phases, where the strongest emphasis was put on design research and prototyping

Design Reseach

By applying user-centered research methods with the tenants at the care facility and mapping insights using various visualization methods, the team was able to build knowledge and empathy for the tenant's life situation. This knowledge was then a strong foundation for generating concepts that would target the real problems and allow for the creation of value.

Prototyping

A key part of the design process was the inclusion of various prototyping activities. Using prototyping, the team was able to better understand the implications of the various concept ideas, identify issues, and make adjustments so that the solutions would better fit into the life of the tenants.

Lessons Learned

Above anything else, the project was a great learning experience for me as I got insights into how the application of the service design approach can result in solutions that focus on the end-user and what is valuable to them. The following lessons are the ones I consider to be the most important:

How the focus on value co-creation (as described in service-dominant logic) can assist a design process in resulting in designs that is beneficial for end-users.
The importance of studying and understanding the user before drawing conclusions, as well as how various methods can be used in practice to conduct these types of user studies.
How the use of visualization techniques can help a design team in building a mutual understanding of complex problems
The importance of prototyping and iterating design solutions, as well as different methods for doing so in practice