Pebble Companion for Occupational Therapy
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Riley Huston, Jett Chang-Lam, Daniel Khorrami, Jun Ochiai
10-week group project | 2022
Industrial Design
Participatory Design
Systems Design
UX Design
The Problem
The Problem
How do you decentralize occupational therapy? We worked with a licensed therapist to design a system of products that could serve parent, child, and therapist while also empowering children in their own therapeutic journey.
Approach
Approach
We worked closely with our therapist collaborator to iterate and review our concepts before refining our ideas into Pebble. It was because of this feedback loop with our expert that strengthened our decisions and bolstered our design overall.
Occupational therapists help patients develop, improve, and maintain the skills needed for daily living.
During this project we worked closely with Chelsea, a licensed pediatric occupational therapist working at a non-profit clinic in California.
Therapy is a system of consistent clinic visits and at-home practice.
Clinic visits are led by a therapist, but at home the family is entirely responsible for theraputic exercises, and is cut off from a therapist's instruction.
System View
At home, the parent and child are responsible for therapy, and the parent is still responsible for the child's daily life.
At the clinic, the therapist is responsible for all tasks relating to therapy, scheduling, grief-management, and theraputic improvement.
The current centralized model of therapy leaves a gap between the home and the clinic.
"Most of the child's improvement comes from the work they do outside of the therapist's office."
- Chelsea
How can we better connect the child, therapist, and parent both at home and during appointments?
Avenues of Fostering Connection
Approach 1: Building a connection through a strong Routine and universal Tools.
Approach 2: Building a connection at the clinic through Communication and understanding of therapeutic goals.
System Focuses:
1. At the clinic: assisting the therapist in prescribing routines with the family.
1. At the home and clinic: assisting the therapist communicate with the family.
2. At home: Helping the family by using universal tools to maintain a routine.
Selected Focus Area:
Build an at-home Routine using universal Tools.
Concepts:
Touchpoint and Companion - tracking therapeutic by marking activity zones in the home, and encouraging habit-forming through interaction.
New focuses:
Collecting therapy data to view at the clinic and strengthening routines with a gamified approach.
New concept:
Combining companion and gamification with therapist-prescribed routines. And collecting data with additional universal tool
Refinement:
Shape and form should communicate comfort and approachability to all ages.
The concept of a companion device and connected therapeutic tools comes from Chelsea's own therapy practice, and her "fun-first" approach to a child's learning and growth.
"We try and make their whole session as fun as possible to make it not seem like therapy. "
- Chelsea
Connected Devices
The companion device pairs to a set of "smart handles" that can track a range of movement data.
Interchangeable Utensil Head
The smart handles' utensil heads are easily removed and swapped, which allows therapists to prescribe a range of activities.
"My patients sometimes have pickiness for food, textures, tastes, those types of things, and trouble with coordination and using their mouth.
Maybe they can get food from a straw or they don't know how to use utensils ... That feeding has a lot of equipment that we use and it can be specialized. Our time can be spent practicing feeding. It's a whole equipment category."
Data-Driven Insights
A companion application allows therapists and parents to view their child's progress,
connecting home and clinic.
The Companion Device
Pebble is designed to be a character children can learn alongside.
Chelsea's patients ranged from 24 months to 12 years old, so the device's appearance has to appeal to a wide range of ages.
Dynamic Feedback
The Pebble provides specific feedback to the child based on the activity and the data collected by the smart handles.
Integrated Multi-Function Ring
The companion device houses a pivoting rubber ring that acts as both a stand and a carry attachment.
Different tasks require the device to be either handheld or stood on a surface. The ring is large and made from rubber to make it easier to manipulate for children with different levels of fine motor control.
Storage and Organization
The smart handles and attachments are stored in an organizer that charges the handle's battery and neatly displays the different utensil heads.
Thank you to our professor Scott and to our expert Chelsea for their insightful critique and teachings!
Additional Research
Additional Research
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