Date of Award

8-2018

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

Visual and Performing Arts

Committee Chair

Zhenyu (Cheryl) Qian

Committee Member 1

Steve Visser

Committee Member 2

Tong Jin (TJ) Kim

Abstract

The challenges of the aging world population continue to become more and more serious. Caregivers play a very important role in the caregiving system. There are different types of caregivers: family caregivers, who are typically a patient's family member; and professional caregivers, who are trained and paid to care for their assigned patients. Another group yet are volunteer caregivers, the primary targeted user group of this research. Volunteer caregivers are both dramatically overlooked and making significant contributions to society. People who work as volunteer caregivers are mostly motivated by their kindness. Volunteer caregiving is typically a part-time job provided by a non-profit organization. Though such organizations may have unique systems, they often share many issues in common. Accordingly, this thesis’ aim is to enhance the experience and solve the problems encountered by volunteer caregivers.

To achieve the goals, I completed some literature reviews, and market research to get the big picture of the current caregiving system and figure out the direction to go, where I found mentally stressed has been mentioned frequently. Then some user research has been done to identify the problem such as user interview emphatic study, observation, etc. Throughout the research process, the emphatic study gives me more insight into this design problem, where I basically try to be a volunteer caregiver in a non-profit caregiving organization. Based on all these research, then I made the user persona, and user journey map, where I figured out the problems that I need to solve are Lonely, lack of motivation, Communication, Mental health, Credibility and lack of information.

Following several design processes and iterations, I developed a new caregiving system as the solution. Care Givers is a mobile application and smart nametag. With the help of the application, caregivers can work as a small team to provide services to a patient. They can take a shift or just work at the same time. Also, caregivers can share their photos, videos, and experiences with other users. What's more, the smart nametag’s capacity to connect to the application efficiently establishes the caregivers’ credibility and ensures their safety. Care Givers offers these caregivers an improved user journey by creating a small team and supportive community in order to alleviate their reported loneliness. Also, the application provides all the information a caregiver needs.

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