For the second weeks project we were asked to form a group and write our own brief. We were given a template which we were entitled to fill in with the problems that we found within the environments that we visited along with a solution to the problem. After a few days of getting out into the environment and going into environments that I would not normally go to we thought of a variety of problems within these environments. We spent a day as a group narrowing down the problems that we found as we felt that they were to broad. After a lot of thinking we decided on a brief that we felt was our strongest one to work with this was .... to design a service/system to help residents in a nursing home by designing an environment to encourage a sense of freedom.
After visiting a few nursing homes/residential homes we picked up on a few problems. I noticed that the residents found it hard to listen to the TV, I picked up on this straight away, and when I was talking to one of the residents we spoke about this problem and they went on to mention that some people don't want to watch the same program as everyone else. I came up with a solution almost as soon as we left the home this was to design a system were by each resident has a small TV attached to thier chair so they can choose what they want to watch, they would also be provided with a pair of headphones. The set up would be similar to the type of system one would find n an Airplane.
As a group we did not decided to design this solution as we found another problem within the home which we felt was more apparent. This occurred when we were talking to a resident called Albert. He mentioned that he misses doing the hobbies that he once left behind when entering the home. Above is our final solution to this problem, we decided to create a system were by the resident is allowed to leave the nursing home and go to a place were by they are able to still take part in the hobbies that they enjoy. Our system was designed so that each resident was given a card which stored all their information on it, they could then use this card to log in when they arrive at the destination were they take part in the activities. Also we thought if the resident loses the card there could be a system were by the resident scans there fingerprint and they will be logged in. We also thought about the staff of the home, so we created a website which would allow the staff to check were the residents are. Above features our final solution to the problem, which we presented in a pin up crit. I felt that the crit wet well as we received positive feedback, I also felt that our group worked really well together and we found answered the brief really well.
