KIT: Keeping in Touch

Jiamae Wang, Claire Nikong, Aydan Bailey, Kenny Ma

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jwv1OEdeT7SsidF6GP5focS1g4bEAq56D_n2Z_JgIF4/edit?usp=sharing

PROBLEM OVERVIEW

America is getting older. According to the AARP, by 2030, 20% of the nation’s population will be 65 or older (see figures). What’s more, Capital Caring Health reported in 2021 that 90% of Americans over the age of 50 stated that they would prefer the comfort, freedom, and lower cost of aging in place (staying in their own houses) over assisted living. In addition, we’ve found in our own research that many American seniors want to be cared for by their family members, so the burden falls on America’s adults to provide care for their elderly relatives. Our group explored how we might help these adults (our target user group) provide this kind of care, and found that many of our the common problems in care fall into three main categories, all of which can be related to issues with communication:

1. Information — “How much and what kind of care should I provide?”

Poor communication can inhibit the exchange of information and result in guesswork and frustration on both sides. Especially in emergency situations, information might not be shared without strong lines of communication.

1. Autonomy — “How do I provide enough help without overstepping?”

Poor communication can lead to a disconnect about the right level of care. Without open communication, caregivers may come off as either unavailable or controlling, and elderly relatives may seem resistant to or unappreciative of care.

1. Relationship — “How does my relative feel about the care I am giving?”

Poor communication allows care-related issues to fester, and can also create a sense of distance between family members.

According to the AARP, by 2030, 20% of the nation’s population will be 65 or older.

SOLUTION:

From our research, we found that communication between caregivers and their elderly relatives needs facilitation. We chose to focus on asynchronous communication so as to maintain a baseline level even when one or both parties are busy. To facilitate this kind of communication, we designed KIT (“Keeping in Touch”), a mobile application for caregivers that connects them with their elderly relatives (who would use a specially-designed, senior-friendly tablet). Two-way communication is maintained through journal entries sent by the older relatives and an Instagram-like feed updated by the younger relatives. The application also tracks tasks that the older relative needs to complete each day, with an emphasis on seniors retaining control and autonomy, while providing caregivers peace of mind.

Of course, technology can’t fix the fundamentally human problems associated with communication, and our application doesn’t aim to. Rather than replacing traditional forms of communication, we hope that KIT will instead help to encourage a sort of “lower bound” on the frequency and quality of communication through scaffolded in-app interaction and collaboration.

PAPER PROTOTYPE, TESTING PROCESS, AND RESULTS:

Overview of the entire app.

After creating an initial paper prototype of the app, we conducted usability testing. During each test we introduced the goal of the test, how it would be conducted, and explained the purpose of our project design and the participant’s role in testing it — as an adult who is trying to stay in touch and up-to-date with an elderly relative. Next, we asked the participant to complete two general tasks: (1) communicating and maintaining their relationship with their Grandma by checking up on what she is doing and letting her know what they were up to and (2) helping their Grandma with her tasks and upcoming doctor’s appointment. To wrap-up, we answered any questions the participant had about our design and then asked for feedback regarding the clarity/usability of the design, cohesiveness of the features, and general areas to improve.

We tested three UW students with varying backgrounds relating to our problem: (1) an international student who needs to maintain frequent communication with their long-distance relatives, (2) a student who lives at home so he can carefully look after his family, (3) and a student who looks after his grandfather. After receiving feedback we pinpointed the most important issues to revise:

• Participants were confused about the naming convention in our design such as “Tasks” and “Recent Entries”. They weren’t sure what these referred to, so we revised them to “Grandma’s Tasks” and “Journal Entries”.
• We hadn’t implemented a way to edit tasks, an important feature. We revised this by adopting the common convention for edit/delete functionality: adding a vertical 3-dot menu on the right of each task.

DIGITAL MOCKUP:

Final Mockup | Interactive Version

In our research, we identified two key tasks that users often have to complete. Our design supports these two tasks in the following ways:

Task 1: Regularly Communicating with Relatives

KIT allows elderly relatives to send daily, handwritten journal entries from an elderly-friendly tablet device to the app, so that their younger relatives can read and reply to them. The younger relatives can also post Instagram-like posts that can be seen by their relatives. By allowing both sides to use familiar communication mediums, KIT bridges the generational technology gap and helps family members stay connected.

When an elderly relative’s profile is selected, the user can see their relative’s recent journal entries. The user can tap on an entry to read it and reply.

To view their feed, the user can click on their own profile picture. This brings up the feed view, which displays posts in their network and allows the user to make new posts.

Task 2: Regularly Helping Relatives with Tasks

KIT features a collaborative task management system that allows both sides to view and create tasks. Crucially, KIT places the control in the elderly relative’s hands, so they can maintain ownership over what needs to be done. When younger relatives create a task, it’s sent to the older relative for review, and remains pending until approved.

Here, the user can see their relative’s tasks. For unaccomplished tasks, a ‘remind’ button is available. The user can also create a new task, which must then be approved by the relative to be added to the Tasks list.

Between the paper prototype and our digital mockup, we made a few notable changes to the design:

• Searchable journal entries — Our research participants brought up the possibility of users wanting to look up information in past journal entries. We added a search bar to the top of the journal entries view.
• View permissions for user posts — Another concern was raised that users may wish to selectively share posts with relatives. We added visibility settings to the “New Post” window for users to share with specific relatives or a predefined relative group.
• Recurring tasks — Many of the tasks caregivers would be helping with would be recurring (e.g. “Take Pills”). We added recurring task functionality by creating “Date” and “Frequency” attribute fields in the “Create Task” window, and corresponding subscripts for tasks in the task view.
• Reminder timeout — We added a reminder “cooldown” of 1 hour, which we thought was long enough to prevent users from spamming their relatives, but short enough to allow for multiple reminders in a day for tasks that may need it (e.g. “Take Pills”).

SUMMARY:

In our research, we found that many of our users’ common problems trace back to communication and relationship issues between the caregiver and their elderly relative. We designed KIT to address these issues by offering communication mediums that are easy-to-use for both sides. Our journaling and feed features allow families to stay connected and updated about each other’s lives. We hope that these features will encourage regular, habitual communication and openness about care-related topics. Our collaborative tasks feature gets both sides on the same page about care in a frictionless way that respects the elderly person’s autonomy. At its best, we hope that KIT can create an environment where both parties feel open and comfortable talking with each other about care, and are empowered to work together to solve any other problems that may arise.