Connected Residents
IoT ecosystem to aid Property Managers at Independent Senior Living Center
Property Managers at Independent Senior Living Community are often overworked and have to play multiple roles to help manage the Senior Living Community.
They are not only responsible for their staff but also for their residents health and making sure that they are not inconvenienced during their time at the Senior Living Community.
GEA Connected residents are a product and service that enables property managers at Independent Senior Living Centers to track and monitor their health using BLE Beacons and smartwatches.
Our solution aims to aid the property managers and the residents by deploying 'Connected Residents.' Connected Resident is a one-stop solution that allows PMs to know residents' location and details their diet and health status. It gives PMs an edge over their competition while providing value to residents' families and detailed reports shareable to Medical Professionals.
"Design an IoT product and service business model for GE Appliance in the Independent Senior Living Communities MDU."
Our research begins with a market analysis of Independent Senior Living Communities. We did so by studying the 10k reports of Brookdale Senior Living and researching the factors that drive the domain. Some of our findings are as follows:
From our research into the target domain, we begin by familiarizing ourselves with property managers' and residents' needs and frustrations at the Senior Living Center. We had the opportunity to interview 3 Property Managers along with 9 Seniors in 3 different Senior Living Centers.
“It’s difficult to keep a track of all residents, have to go door-to-door to check on them”
“We are understaffed and one person has to take multiple roles”
Property Manager at Senior Living Center
"Sometimes I get anxious thinking what if something happens to me and no-one’s there to help”
“I hit the treadmill thrice a week and I follow a healthy lifestyle.”
Resident at Senior Living Center
Based on the interviews we were able to find the priorities of both the residents and the property managers which can be summarized as follows:
We generated an affinity diagram based on the data collected from Interviews and quotes, we organized the data, collected and identify themes. Using the affinity diagram, we were able to understand that the seniors face different issues and have different needs based on their affinity to technology.
After performing our primary research and analyzing the data using affinity mapping and empathy mapping led to the creation of the following persona.
We decided to utilize a journey map to understand the user's experience living in the senior living center. It helped us identify user needs, pain points, and opportunities at every step in the users journey.
After completing the research phase, some of the findings that helped determined our final design direction are as follows.
Based on the insights from the research phase, we came up with 4 different solutions that we believed addressed the user needs while leveraging GEA's existing capabilities.
A dashboard to keep a track of activities of all residents inside the Senior Living Center and outdoors. Making it easier for Property Managers to handle emergency scenarios that may occur at the Senior Living Center. It
An intuitive washing machine that remembers resident's preferences and presets, making it easier to complete their laundry cycle. PM are notified about filter change and detergent needs.
GE Appliances provides cooling of the refrigerator as a service. It works on a Pay by usage or yearly subscription model. Predictive Maintenance is used for longevity of refrigerator.
A Telehealth solution offered by GE Appliances that will inform doctor about resident’s everyday activities and will keep a track of their health by showing resident eating habits, diet, meal plans recorded by the Property Manager.
We utilized the 10 Characteristics of Great Value Propositions to determine which solution we would proceed with. Our ratings for each of the solutions can be found here. We then pitched all the ideas that we came up with to the client to determine the direction moving forward. From our discussion we decided to combine the resident tracking system with the telehealth solution.
Our proposed solution "Connected Residents" takes features from our two solutions. It uses devices like smartwatches, tablets and laptops to create an ecosystem that has the following features:
GEA Connected Residents is a two pronged approach towards easing the worries of a property manager. The major concerns noticed were with regards to tracking residents and making sure they are healthy and active. Connected Residents is an IoT product and service that is designed to utilize low cost Bluetooth Low Energy Beacons (BLE Beacons) for indoor localization, Smartwatches for Activity and Health tracking, and tablets like iPad for diet tracking.
Using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) Beacons for indoor tracking and the Smartwatch GPS for outdoor tracking.
Using the in-built features on the smart watch, tracking health and activity of residents is possible.
As residents order food at the dinning hall, their orders and consumption can be tracked through tablets like iPads.
We designed a marketing one sheet to get the target customers review of our solution and understand their opinions regarding the design solution.
We also utilized Amazon's working backwards philosophy of product development and generated a fake press release of Connected Residents. This technique allows us to know whether the product is worth building and if the readers are not excited, we would go back and re visit the solution.
To validate our concept, we sent our marketing one sheet and press release to a senior living center to get feedback on our solution and to find areas for improvement. We received the following feedback from the property manager.
Balancing User Experience VS Business Goals
During this project, I experienced what it was like to balance out the user's expectations while also keeping in mind the business goals.
Designing Holistic Experiences for users
Working with a real-world client allowed me to experience what it was like to design holistic experiences for users.
First Experience with Service Design
This project was my first experience with service design, and I was able to first-hand experience what it was like designing beyond the constraints of a single product.
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