GoNut
GoNut is a cause-and-effect vehicle designed to be used in the therapy space of California Children’s Services(CCS) at Santa Barbara for children aged 6 months to 6 years old with motor impairments.
My Contributions
In the research and planning phase, I led the team to conduct user research with observation, interviews and contextual inquiries, and facilitated the ideation process.
In the execution phase, I collaborated closely with engineers on the design of the bumper, button panel and button caps.
Outcomes
The final product was delivered to and received positive feedback from California Children’s Services. Now it is in use and helps around 10 children with motor impairments at the Santa Barbara therapy unit. If it is proved to be able to help with the therapy, it will be put into wider use and benefit more children.
Context
Every year there are many children suffering from motor impairment, and the most common one is cerebral palsy. In 2020 in the US alone there are 10,000 newborns with cerebral palsy. Children with motor impairment, due to its limitation on body movements, have a hard time developing a sense of navigation and body autonomy, which prevents them from using power wheelchairs in the future.
What CCS has been doing is that they conduct therapy sessions for these children, during which they encourage and support children to move and they have seen children develop awareness of space and autonomy overtime.
DEFINE
Challenge
Build a cause-and-effect vehicle - a vehicle that can move in multiple directions in response to button pressing - to be used in the therapy space at the Santa Barbara clinic for children 6 months to 6 years old with motor impairments.
DISCOVERY
Stakeholder Mapping: Children & Therapists Are The Key; Parents & Staff Should Also Be Considered
I first briefly talked to the advisor and the sponsor, and then led the team to create a stakeholder map through discussion. By identifying the key stakeholders, their relationships and their influence on the project, we were able to identify children with motor impairments and their therapists were the primary groups we needed to focus our research on. At the same time, parents’ and other staff’s needs should also be considered. Regulations of the Public Health and UC Santa Barbara must be considered when conducting research and designing the product.
Interviews & Contextual Inquiries: Kids Want Fun; Therapists Want Easy Operation; Parents Want Safety
I led the team to the therapy space to conduct primary research. We conducted interviews and contextual inquiries with 2 therapists and 2 parents, and observed 2 children with motor impairments. A list of needs was generated through the research.
Literature Review: Adhere to Regulations & Principles of Design for Children
I led the designer team to conduct literature review on the design aspect of the product by assigning each of them an area to do research on. Meanwhile, the areas I did research on were the interfaces, colors and textures.
IDEATION
Brainstorming
I facilitated the team through the brainstorming process by encouraging everyone to generate at least 2 to 3 ideas. Some team members did not feel confident at drawing, so I encouraged them to use whatever methods that could help them to communicate their ideas - for example, a series of photos that illustrated some key features of the ideated product.
Idea Selection: Kids Love Chocolate Donut
In the team meeting, I led the team to select down the ideas by filling a Pugh Chart with scores 1, 0, -1 (Yes, Neutral, No) regarding how well each idea satisfied each need. The purpose of this activity was to eliminate ideas that were absolutely impossible and keep ideas for further testing and selection. The scores 1,0, -1 were used for easier consensus.
Then, I brought some toys such as cars, donut, duck, octopus to a children day-care place to observe how they responded to each idea. The result was that they reacted most positively to donut because the time they spent engaging with the donut toy was about 30% longer than other toys.
Meanwhile, the donut vehicle could bring many benefits: (1) donut could act as bumper; (2) the circular shape allowed wider range of the placement of the button panel; (3) it was not too complicated for us to make compared to duck and octopus.
Moreover, we decided to go with chocolate donut with rainbow colored sprinkles on it because the brown and yellow were more gender neutral color. Some boys, for example, did not want to sit on a pink vehicle, so this gender neutral color palette allowed most, if not all, of the children to be willing to sit on it.
Idea Validation
The donut car idea was validated as a preliminary prototype was tested with children and received very positive response. This response and the prototype was presented to the sponsor and other therapists during a milestone presentation. The feedback received was very positive and the team was approved to move on to the execution phase.
EXECUTION
During the execution phase, we were divided into small teams to work on each component. I worked closely with engineers on the design aspect of bumper, button caps and button panel interface.
Bumper: Multiple Testings That Transformed Failure into Success
Version 1
The first version of the donut bumper was built with plywood and then spray painted to obtain the look of a donut. However, we found there were issues with this design as we tested with children and therapists.
1. The spray paints: Though I did lots of research and found a spray paint that was supposed to be non-toxic to children, but after a month, it still gave off very strong smell even if we coated it, so it was actually unsafe for children to use.
2. Weight of the bumper: We researched online about the weight an adult could easily lift and set the weight limit of the bumper to be 15 pounds. We thought it would work fine because it was less than common weight of a carry-on bag, but we soon realized we were wrong when we tested it. The therapists were around 45-60 years old, and they had multiple sections a day not just one section, so lifting 15 pounds up and down was actually a big trouble for them.
3. Too wide: A requirement that the vehicle need to go through the doorway of the therapy space was added, and the bumper was too wide.
4. Tilting issue: The bumper was tilted easily if someone pressed the front with some strength, which might cause the entire vehicle to flip and this was very dangerous.
Final Version
1. Oval 2-pieced donut: We divided it into two pieces: one was fixed on the back, and the front part could be inserted into the back part to become a complete donut after the child sat on the chair. This not only made adding the bumper easier, it also made it easier for therapists to do their job.
2. Water-proof nylon fabric cover: Instead of spray painting it, I made cover for the bumper with waterproof nylon fabric. I also added snap buttons so that it could be open and close super easily, so now when it had the look of a donut, it was not toxic and was much easier to clean.
Button Panel Interface: Iterated to Balance User Needs & Engineering Limitations
Version 1: Round Panel
The initial design I came up with was a round panel with 4 buttons corresponding to each movement(forward, backward, left, right).
Then, through testing we found children really loved a spin movement, so I decided to add one more button, but the engineer pointed out that we needed to make sure there was sufficient distance between the buttons to minimize the chance of two buttons being pressed at the same time and messing up the control system.
Version 2: Diamond Panel
I then decided the make it a diamond shape that could keep the buttons 15cm away from each other. Through our testing, it was not likely for children to press two buttons at the same time.
However, I found another issue during testing: children could tilt the button caps easily by sticking their finger into the gap between the button caps and the panel.
Final Version
A recess feature was added to remove this gap. Now the button caps could only be taken off if an adult pull it with some strength.
Swappable Button Caps: Maximize Interests & Convenience
I worked with an engineer and a designer to come up with more than 20 button caps of various colors, shapes, and texture. The caps could be snapped onto and taken out from an adapter attached to the keys. All the button caps were tested with the children to ensure none of them trigger undesired reactions. I also incorporated animal toys into the button caps because I observed that some children really love animal-shaped toy, so now the button panel could be customized based on children’s preference.
Reflection
Designing a medical device for children with motor impairments is under many ethnical and legal regulations. I find it essential to have an in-depth understanding on the restriction and impact they have on the key stakeholders, the deliverables, and the team. For this project, usability testing is very important for understanding how users respond to and use the product in the context it will be used. Such step is crucial for making sure that our final deliverable can satisfy the regulations of this type of product. However, the testing is also restricted due to the regulations and it took more time and efforts for us to get testing with the desired group. If I will get involved in similar projects in the future, I will pay more attention to the planning and give more buffer time to the usability testing.