Danske Bank is one of the biggest banks in Denmark and is working in 15 other countries within a total of 3.4 million customers. Danske Bank can be recognized by their very successful product – Mobile Pay. (Holewins, 2018)
PROBLEM
IoT (Internet of Things) nowadays trends to make regular things become more digital. Danske Bank had the challenge to choose from – Smart Self – Smart living – Smart cities – to bring new ideas to the business and possibilities to expand. (Holewins, 2018)
From these three domains, we chose smart self and focus on elderly house, specific on elderly people to track their health using sensors and make data collection even better.
CHALLENGE
A goal of this project is to make an easier way of collecting data both manually and automatically. Make these data visually appealing and accessible for assistants, seniors and senior family/representative. To continue propelling question has been made:
How will technological implementations to elderly homes ease the staff’s work while bringing family members together at the same time?
METHODS USED
CREATIVE EXCERSIZE
A huge part at the beginning of the process was for ideation, to understand which of the domains to choose and what exactly to build. We used picture association process to come up with different ideas and at the end, we had three different keywords like – family – happiness – environment. From all these three keywords and long talks, the idea of elderly homes was born. (Möller, 2012)
INTERVIEWS
To get a bigger understanding of the problem we conducted different interviews. With existing assistants that are directly working with elderly people and helping them on daily basis. These interviews were very valuable since nobody in the group had this experience. Other interviews that were made were with elderly people living in the elderly house. We wanted to know their opinion about technologies involved in their lives and how they would they feel about being tracked. Interviews in this project were very useful and valuable since there was no knowledge about this topic. (Elizabeth Goodman, 2012)
USER TESTING
Our concept INTERSENA was tested with some professionals in app development, that gave us a very good feedback. It is very important for this solution to test it out and hear what people are saying about it since the solution is for elderly people who could forget how to use a system. All feedback that was got was immediately implemented and changed and now are in the existing solution. (Elizabeth Goodman, 2012)
SOLUTION
INTERSENA is a modern solution for future elderly houses. A system is designed to make easier work for the assistants who take care of elderly people and at the same time shares all information about seniors health with their family/representative.
A system is developed to learn seniors behavioral patterns from sensors that are implemented in a special bracelet. Sensors collect information about seniors sleeping cycles, mood, eating habits and unusual behavior and not only that, a system is developed also to make easier work for an assistant who put information in about like hygiene, activities, and information about seniors health. All this information is accessible to senior, seniors assistant, and seniors family. INTERSENA make it transparent and family can be in peace that their senior is in good care.
A system is made for three different users, and it’s different from each other because of the user types.
ASSISTANTS PROFILE
Assistant is responsible for inputting information manually and make it easy for daily routines for a senior. An interface allows an assistant to do daily checkup very quickly and is always up-to-date which assistant take care of a senior and see also what their colleagues are doing.
Assistant is also responsible for updating events on event calendar so seniors and their families know the upcoming events.
Assistant is also having very easy communication between colleagues and seniors family. Since all users are connected it is very easy for all users to find each other in the system.
SENIORS PROFILE
Seniors profile is having an only viewable function. Senior is able to view their own profile and always can be up-to-date with their health. The calendar allows senior to know when there is planned event in elderly house, and also can see when their family is coming over for a visit. It is also very important that senior can call their family with or without video when they feel it is necessary. Since seniors can feel overwhelming it is important that they have an easy access to assistance in any minute, so the SOS button is implemented in the system for immediate assistants help.
VISITORS / FAMILY'S PROFILE
Seniors visitors profile is also informative. It is possible to see seniors health, and in a long-term generate a graphic that shows how for example sleeping cycle has been in a past month.
The visitor also has a possibility to connect with senior and assistants using built-in video or regular call. Using a calendar that is connected with seniors profile, visitors can see what is planned for senior and can more responsibly plan their visit, by pressing “book a visit” new event is created in visitors and seniors profile.
Since visitor/ family can see seniors activities when they are mowing, and when not, they can remotely press SOS button if they feel something is going on with their senior and can help them by calling assistants in elderly house.
All App designs are not my creation but I had a big part of creating the structure of it and how it should work
RESULTS
INTERSENA is a solution with different possibilities. With few adjustments it could work with other institutions where people are getting different treatment. It is possible that INTERSENA can go in other direction, that families are not going to visit their seniors and just look at those graphs, but before it is implemented it is just an assumption. Since this is a solution for future elderly homes the values for families could change and next-generation minds can be changed, that might work only with help from technologies.
References and literature used in this project:
Elizabeth Goodman, Mike Kuniavsky, Andrea Moed. (2012). Observing the User Experience. United States of America: British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.
Holewins, N. (Performer). (2018, November 5). Danske Bank - Internet of things (IoT). Business Academy Aarhus, Aarhus.
Möller, O. (2012, January 25). Image brainstorming. Retrieved from https://projectofhow.com/methods/image-brainstorming/