Comfort and Care Box

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The “Comfort and Care Box” is a portable kit containing self-care, hygiene, and first aid products for low-income and homeless individuals. Our design also turns into a foldable pillow with the goals of providing comfort, accessibility, empathy, and care.

 

Read More

 

Mood Communicator

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The “Mood Communicator” is a medical device providing accessibility of communication for patients who are nonverbal or unable to speak. Through push buttons indicating emotions or needs with lights, we created an accessible and empathetic design to reduce the miscommunication gap in hospitals.

 

Read More

 

 

Overview

Throughout Maker Lab, I collaborated with my group to design two project solutions that develop social change. For GMP1, we “hacked” a standard box to design “The Comfort and Care Box,” a portable kit providing hygiene, first aid, and menstrual products for low-income and homeless populations. For GMP2, we created the “Mood Communicator,” a medical device that allows patients with the inability to speak access to communication through push-button LED lights indicating emotions, needs, and pain levels. Both projects pushed for advocacy of our users’ needs and allowed us to create empathetic, accessible, and user-centred designs to develop social change.

 

Design Process Review

For both GMP1 and GMP2, our design process was based on critical making, empathy, iteration, and social change. For GMP1, we started by researching existing initiatives providing self-care for low-income and homeless populations. Inspired by Ratto’s concept of critical making, we used a hands-on approach to push our design beyond the basic box form. From this, we prototyped a refillable “Comfort and Care Box” that also transforms into a foldable pillow. This process required recyclable material testing, user-specific design choices, and learning sewing techniques. Every decision, such as the sewn puffer effect for comfort, was based on our goals of comfort, care, accessibility, sustainability and empathy. 

 

In GMP2, our design process focused on technological making. We started by researching the communication gap in hospitals between staff and patients who are nonverbal or unable to speak. We wanted to design a device that is inclusive of all individuals’ communication, such as those who are intubated, recovering from surgery, or experiencing conditions that make verbal communication difficult. We learned that miscommunication contributes to medical errors in approximately 30% of adverse hospital events (The Joint Commission, 2015). To address this issue, we design the “Mood Communicator,” a device allowing patients unable to communicate with a push button and LED lights indicating specific emotions, needs, or pain levels. Using an Arduino, we used trial and error to code and wire our LED lights with buttons to turn on/off when pressed. Throughout this process, we kept in mind the perspective of our users by asking ourselves, “How could we communicate in our most vulnerable state if we couldn’t speak?”. With this in mind, we created a device that promotes empathy, understanding, communication, and accessibility.

 

Design Challenges

Throughout both projects, we encountered a variety of challenges during our design process. In GMP1, we struggled with material choices, balancing structure with comfort, choosing the design layout, and learning sewing techniques. To respond to these challenges, we balanced the pros and cons to choose the best fabric (recycled polyester/nylon), added structure using internal boning, and used YouTube tutorials to learn basic sewing techniques. In GMP2, our biggest challenges were errors in coding and wiring our Arduino circuit. To address our struggles, we broke the process into steps, starting by coding/wiring a single LED light to turn on. We then added the button, but didn’t begin to add multiple lights or buttons until we got just one working to reduce potential confusion and errors. What worked well during both projects was using an iterative approach with trial and error, allowing us to understand/address problems in smaller stages rather than all at once. Something that didn’t work well was overconsidering potential issues that may arise; although it is important to consider potential challenges, it sometimes held us back from exploring certain ideas further. The design challenges our group experienced throughout both projects taught us important problem-solving techniques and ways to approach future design projects.

 

Conclusion

In conclusion, both GMP1 and GMP2 strengthened my understanding of how making, empathy, accessibility, and social change inform UX design. Throughout Maker Lab I, our group designed the “Comfort and Care Box” and the “Mood Communicator,” both addressing real barriers in accessibility, empathy, comfort, and communication. Our group overcame challenges with design/material choices, sewing, coding, and wiring circuits by using trial and error, watching tutorials, and breaking down the process in iterations. Throughout both projects, we developed our creative thinking and problem-solving skills, learning that setbacks are a part of the design process and we must learn from them to grow and adapt our designs in future UX endeavours. Overall, throughout Maker Lab I, we learned the importance of making through collaboration, social change, iteration, prototyping, and user-centred design.

 

References:

Ratto, Matt. “Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in Technology and Social Life.” The Information Society, vol. 27, no. 4, 2011, pp. 252–260. Taylor & Francis Online, https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2011.583819.

The Joint Commission. “Improving Patient Safety Through Effective Communication.” The Joint Commission, 2015, www.jointcommission.org/resources/patient-safety-topics.