Free Solo

The team started by analyzing ten diary studies to gain a better understanding of the roles family caregivers play in their home environments. We also conducted secondary research around how changes in mental and physical abilities affect home life. Those learnings were used to develop discussion guides for live interviews the team led. 

Interview participants were chosen by using Dscout to screen over 250 caregivers to find people who were providing non-professional caretaking to loved ones who don't live in assisted living homes. They also indicated that they provide assistance with housework, home maintenance, and the ongoing modifications and maintenance of their loved one's home. 

From speaking to four caregivers about their needs and experiences caring for loves ones, focusing on challenges with the structure of their home, the following insights were found:

• Houses aren't designed to accommodate mobility aides or limited mobility 
  •  “You can’t really install handlebars in bedrooms” -Richard

• Home fixtures don't adjust to meet the changing needs of the homeowner 
  • “You don't want to give someone a house designed for a wheelchair when they are 55” -Amy

• Caregivers focus their home improvements on supporting physical needs, rather than psychological 
  •  Hannah’s husband couldn’t engage with people socially due to his sensitivity to light and noise, but no modifications have been made to support bringing friends and family to the house to spend time with him. 

• Mobility devices & workarounds fail to meet the same capabilities of having another human present
  • Hannah helped her husband walk around the house to prevent him from falling, but she is much smaller than him and wouldn’t be able to catch him if he did fall

Using the insights developed from primary research, the team created the following how-might-we questions to guide brainstorming sessions:

• HMW make home improvement products able to fit in different home layouts?
• HMW add discrete mobility aids to already-existing structures to increase accessibility?
• HMW build in mobility aids that are discrete until needed?
• HMW create a home environment that adjusts to match the homeowner's abilities?

Those how-might-we questions were used to generate ideas for new products that would aid caregivers and their loved ones around the home. Three concepts were selected for further refinement and prototyping. The prototypes were then used during interviews with four more caregivers to gain their feedback:

The team selected the handrail auto-belay concept to continue iterating and refining. Further research into how a mechanical retraction system could be designed was conducted and design requirements were developed for the harness system. The main adjustments made to the design were:

• Switching from a rock climbing auto-belay mechanism to a seatbelt mechanism, making the design more compact
• Changing the belt harness to a vest for added support and comfort

Functional requirements for the final design included being able to catch up to 300 pounds, be able to safely install on any staircase (inside and outside), allow users to have their hands free, and be able to be used by a person without assistance. Emotional requirements were to increase feelings of independence, security, and stability.

While developing the final concept for the stair climbing assistive device, the team found the competitive advantage of the final concept through a whitespace analysis that began with a root cause analysis:

Problem: "People with limited mobility fall while climbing stairs" 

Why? They have difficulty navigating stairs due to their physical limitations  

Why? Stairs require balance, coordination, and strength that they may lack 

Why? Various health conditions, injuries, or aging that have affected their physical abilities 

Why? They may not have access to appropriate healthcare, rehabilitation services, or assistive devices to improve their physical condition

Why? Factors such as financial constraints, lack of awareness, or inadequate healthcare infrastructure

Competitive analysis of existing stair-climbing assistive devices found that:

• Portable options are clunky, require a second person, or are unreliable
• People need bidirectional security when going up and down the stairs
• There is a trade-off between price and stability in existing solutions

These insights showed us that the whitespace for competitive advantage existed if we could provide: 

• Bidirectional security to provide the capability of catching a downward fall while walking up and down the stairs
• Portable device to provide versatility and modularity
• High level of stability and security at a low price