Seesaw: Helping the late blind take the first step
A product design project that’s aimed to ease the journey of people who have acquired visual impairment in the later stages of their life.
Project by: Davis Chris, Rhea Pinto, Sonira Mehta, Sagar Guldekar, Vidhi Furia
Brief
We used the five-staged Design Thinking methodology introduced by Stanford d.school. Unfortunately, we couldn’t test our products on our target audience due to the pandemic and don’t have any new insights that can improve our project.
Why Target people with late blindness?
While conducting secondary research, it came to our notice that products that are being sold in the market aren’t made for Indians and are mostly targeted towards people who were either born with visual impairment or have acquired it at an early age. People with late blindness have to not only change their lifestyle, they have to deal with the emotional trauma that comes along with it. It is challenging to make a physical adjustment as well as to overcome the emotional stress an individual faces under these circumstances.
Process
Secondary Research
At this stage, our initial focus was to look for products in the market that people used on a regular basis, as well as products that aren’t currently in the market.
All of these products couldn’t be used in a developing country like India where the roads, and public transportation aren’t in the best of conditions.
We also found out some interesting facts about the visually impaired. Some of them are that they feel thermal energy deposited by the sun.
We also decided to narrow down our audience to people who have acquired blindness in the later parts of their life.
Areas of Exploration
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in psychology
comprising a five-tier model of human needs, In our context, we decided to look at the hierarchy through our target audience’s perspective.
Products have been made to assist the visually impaired in the
physiological needs and safety needs However there are no
products available in the market for the top two sections of
the hierarchy. Many a time, their psychological and self-fulfilment needs have been ignored and deemed insignificant and as a result have instilled a feeling
of hopelessness among the people with visual disability.
Primary Research
For our primary research, we visited people who have acquired late blindness and people who are associated with them. We first went to NAB where Ms. Reshmi Patil, head of Operations emphasised how problematic locating objects and navigating areas are for them. (her quote) She also spoke a great deal about the emotional journey that people go through once they come to know that the change is irreversible and they have to adapt to a new lifestyle. The interesting facts that we acquired from our secondary research was immediately dispelled by her. Ms. Patil also told us about how there aren’t many opportunities for people with late blindness and how she would like to see that changed in the coming future.
For our next visit, we went to the Women’s Hostel for the Blind in Andheri where we interviewed them while they were practicing a new skill. Most of the women living in that hostel became visually impaired during their adolescence and in their early 20s. Most of them didn’t know how to read and write in Braille since they have come from a low socio-economic background where the families were either ignorant, or simply paranoid for their daughters. They earn a living by doing simple tasks like sewing and . When we asked them how they got so good at this, they emphasised the need for practicing to not be afraid of the needle or of any tool that could be a potential danger. Travelling by local trains has become much easier by the use of their sticks and also because of the daily passengers that help them and they use their mobile phones (the one with buttons).
For our last visit, we interviewed a teacher who helps people cope with late blindness from NAB. He became blind at the age of 25 and now is studying to become a government employee. He told us how difficult it is for him and for people like him to socialise and to find new friends. Going through this journey even with loved ones can sometimes be quite lonely, they would like to meet people who have walked the same journey as they can truly understand.
Define
From the interviews we conducted in the Empathise stage, we made personas based on 2 types of people with blindness- one that has been blind from the start and the other that has acquired in their adult life.
By looking at Karan Das, our team wanted to design something that would help him overcome his feeling of despair and hopelessness and to make him get back on his feet and start a functional life. Our How might We statement is:
“How might we create a solution that helps people who have recently acquired blindness to adapt to their new reality, so as to lead a functional life?”
Ideation and Prototyping
Since our problem is based on helping people overcome their loss, we decided to ideate based on the Kubler Ross Model of grief, also known as the five stags of grief. While ideating, we made low fidelity prototypes of each idea and tested it on blindfolded people.
We needed a way to challenge the user in the initial stage, even before they opened the kit
We needed something for them to then take out their anger on
Next we thought of a way to help them retain an old skill
We wanted to help them get through depression the best we could
Finally we wanted them to enjoy their new life and help them enhance their remaining senses
The Final Concept
The Box
The box itself is made to help with Denial. It has an unconventional way of opening which is apparent to the sighted but nit to the
visually impaired.
The Stick
The walking stick helps with Anger. As they can throw it around and break when they get frustrated and also use to learn how to walk with a stick
The Writing Pad
The writing pad is created to deal with Bargaining. They can use to write with and still retain one skill from their past, they will not have to give up on everything they used to do.
The Message Ball
The message ball helps them cope with Depression. The ball records messages from their loved ones and plays it back to them whenever they feel like listening to something that will cheer them up.
Darts
Once they have Accepted their condition they can use the dart game to help them enhance their other senses and also let them have fun with their near and dear ones.
Conclusion
We wanted to help the users go through the stages of grief quicker and without any backlash and so we came up with seesaw.
Thank you.
