CARING CULTURE
FALL 2023
LONDON, ENGLANDPROJECT TEAM
CYNTHIA LOFORTE
SHAADIN ISTAITIE
RORY MYERS
GABRIELLE RAMSAY
JOLYN YIN
DESIGN RESEARCH
ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS DESIGN BRIEF
While studying at the London College of Communication, I worked in a group to complete the Caring Culture brief from the RSA SDA Competition. This seven week project was a rapid exploration of investigative and generative tools as well as an introduction to the design research process.
THE BRIEFHow might we improve the lives of older adults and their carers by encouraging and enabling cultures, and higher standards, of care?
READ THE FULL BRIEF
DISCOVER & DEFINE
The Double Diamond developed by the British Design Council guided our process through this brief. We specifically focused on the first diamond, discover and define, which meant this was fully a design research project, only moving into ideation in the final week.
UNDERSTANDING THE BRIEF
The brief we received was quite broad. Elderly care is a complex topic, so our first step was to gain a better understanding of the current state of elderly care and then define our area of focus.
RESEARCHING THE TOPIC After exploring a couple different themes in the brief, I focused in on loneliness in the elderly. I found that not only are there reports of loneliness in older generations but also in younger demographics. This shared feeling of loneliness in two different groups of people was an interesting discovery.
OUR PROBLEM SPACE
How can young adults and elderly adults come together to lessen their
mutual loneliness?
TALKING WITH THE EXPERTS
TARGET DEMOGRAPHICSELDERLY ADULTS 65+
UNIVERSITY STUDENTS & RECENT GRADUATES
Our primary research mostly relied on one-on-one interviews so we could fully understand the nuance of our interviewees’ experiences. Everyone on the team conducted interviews with either the elderly, young people, or care takers to understand different perspectives and perceptions of stakeholders within our problem space.
NANA ON AGING &
FINDING COMMUNITY
I interviewed my nana for this project. I talked to her about watching her mom age whiling living 6 hours away and what that experience was like. We also talked about her experience with aging and how she stays connected to her community in Cleveland. My nana hobby of sewing connects her to people no matter where she lives. She is on the board of her local quilting guild and has taught sewing to people of all ages. Something that fuels her is sewing for others.
CONTENT APPROVED BY SHARON RAMSAY
YOUNG PEOPLE & THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE
OLDER GENERATION
In addition to one-on-one interviews, a survey was sent out targeted towards younger people to gage their attitude towards the older generation and what barriers might stop them from interacting with the elderly.
GENERATING INSIGHTS
After each person in the group did their own primary research, we regrouped to sort through all our findings. We started by talking through our research, identifying what stuck out to us, and then identified patterns between our initial research, interviews, and survey responses.
DEFINING KEY INSIGHTS
As we talked through our research, the conversation started as observation and reflection that stuck out to us but evolved into goals we have for our solutions and any obstacles to watch out for as we move into ideation.
GETTING SPECIFIC
We then focused on user needs. The syntax for these is
“As a (user), I need/want (need) so that (desire) but (obstacle).” This paints a full picture of who our users are, their needs, their motivations, and the barriers they face. From there, we created “how might we...” statements. These combined our key insights and user needs into one problem statement that would help us ideate solutions around one central issue.
OUR DRIVING QUESTION
How might we enable elderly
care patients to feel less of a
burden to their carers and
society if they feel disconnected
and suffer from loneliness?
RAPID IDEATION
After capturing key insights from our primary research and defining a how might we statement, it was time to start ideating solutions. The first round was extremely generative, coming up with as many ideas as we could. For the second round, we each chose an idea the intrigued us from the first round and iterated off of it. Then, looking at all of the solutions we came up with, we sorted through them and chose the ones that best aligned with our how might we statement.
ROUND 1: IDEATION
ROUND 2: ITERATION
ROUND 3: SORTING
PRIORITIZING SOLUTIONSAfter ideating, we prioritized our solutions. The top five idea coming out of ideation were a co-working space where the elderly can help young professionals navigate their careers, a magazine that spreads the stories of the elderly, a community garden, introducing student meal deals into nursing home cafeterias, and a talk series where the elderly share their life experience with a young audience. We mapped all of these ideas onto a prioritization matrix to see which ideas were most doable and had a substantial impact.
CONCEPT CARDS
SOLUTION 1WORDS OF WISDOM Words of Wisdom, abbreviated to WOW, is a talks series that is a platform for the elderly to share their life experiences, passing their knowledge down to a younger audience. Each event has a theme guiding the event and informing the topics of the talks given.
SOLUTION 2AGE-ZINEAge-zine is a publication aimed towards a young audience that spreads the stories and life advice of the older generation. The content is collected in partnership with the elderly, through interviews, op-eds, and advice columns, and is then curated and designed by a young staff, bridging the gap between the two generation.
GABRIELLE RAMSAYCINCINNATI, OHIO
2024