Introduction

This is the documentation for the two interviews our team, team Dione, conducted with our client Kim and her father Bob. The purpose of this interview was to understand the Kim’s habits, hobbies and uncover any daily challenges she experiences that we could potentially solve. After we compiled a list of challenges, we devised ways to address them with assistive devices. Our goal was to gain Kim’s perspective on what it’s like living with a disability, how it impacts her daily routine and better understand her relationship with her assertive devices. With this in mind, we were able to ideate devices that Kim would be excited to use and that could make a difference in her every day life.

Meeting Agenda

The first meeting on March 21st includes basic understanding of client’s interests, needs and preference. We’ve prepared the following list of questions to ask:

  • Introductions
    • Each team member introduce themselves
    • Have Kim introduce herself
  • Living habits
    • Describe a typical day in your life
    • What parts of your day do you look forward to?
    • Are there any parts of your daily routine do you dread doing?
  • Hobbies/Interests/Favorite Activities
    • How do you like to spend your free time?
    • What are some of your hobbies?
      • Are there any challenges or frustrations you face when doing these hobbies?
    • What are some of your interests?
      • Favorite foods, color, movies, books, games
      • Are there any problems that prevent you from pursuing any of these interests?
    • What extracurricular activities are you apart of?
    • Are there any hobbies or activities that you’ve always wanted to try but haven’t had the chance?

The second meeting on March 25th involves better understanding of client’s physical ability through demonstrations and artifact representations. It is to clarify confusion and misunderstanding in the first interview. Prior to the meeting we’ve prepare to ask Kim to perform the following task:

  • To paint with Acrylic on Canvas to see how she uses brushes, how her father assist her during the process
  • Play games on laptop or type on keyboard to show what keys and functions she usually uses

Questions for meeting 2:

  • Questions about Kim’s experience using a keyboard
    • What games do you like playing on your laptop?
    • Which keys do you typically use on the laptop?
    • Aside from games, what else do you use your laptop for?
    • Do you use the mouse or the track pad?
    • Do you face any discomfort when typing on the key board or when using the mouse?
    • Do you use the keyboard to type our essays, letters, or emails?
  • Questions about Kim’s experience with arts and crafts, specifically painting
    • How do you set up your art supplies to paint?
    • Do you paint at home or only in class?
      • What prevents you from painting at home?
    • What discomfort or challenges do you face when painting?
    • How do you clean up your art supplies?
    • How do you situate the canvas?

Summary And Documentations

The following text are points summarizing from the interview:

Most of our conversation with Kim focused on her love for painting and playing video games on her computer. From these conversations we learned Kim has limited motion in her right arm, she cannot bend her elbow and her hand can only grasp lightly but could not release. Due to these restraints, Kim heavily depends on her left hand when painting and playing video games. Kim and her father were excited by the potential to create a device that can help her use her right hand again. However, after learning about Kim’s extensive physical therapy journey to try and regain motor control over her right hand, we pivoted from that idea. Instead, we looked at the potential to create a device to help Kim use her left hand more efficiently and decrease Kim’s dependence on others when doing her hobbies.

Kim used to be righthanded but she is skilled with her left hand in craft, typing and writing, through our observation during the second Interview. In the first Interview we became acquainted with Kim’s lifestyle, she told us about her interests, hobbies and weekly routine. These are the notes we wrote down during the interview:

  • Kim is enrolled in a cooking class
    • Enjoys making desserts
      • Loves the make and decorate cakes
      • Challenges
        • Cannot cut, slice, or dice due to the lack of control in her right hand
        • Maneuvering around the kitchen-kitchen layout
    • Helps out her Dad when he is cooking
      • They enjoy making pizza together
  • Kim is in an art class
    • Enjoys Painting
      • Art class has special supplies that is catered towards artists with disabilities
      • Usually paints on a canvas laying flat on a table
        • Wants to try painting on a canvas when it’s on an easel
      • What Kim likes to paint
        • Flowers
        • Horses
        • Buildings
        • Landscape
        • Looking at the picture and draw on it
      • Challenges
        • Setting up the supplies requires assistance
        • Cleaning the brushes
        • Changing the dirty water out with clean water
        • positioning the canvas
        • Sometimes hard time to come up with inspiration
    • Enjoys pottery
    • A painting on the office
    • Likes to make arts and crafts
      • Crafts: necklace, bracelet
      • made a small miniature design of a her dream bedroom for her art class
      • Purse: beads hanging on the purse
  • In a computer class
    • Loves playing games on her computer and tablet 
      • Candy crash
      • Card games
        • solitare
        • wants to play with physical cards but has not tried that yet
      • Bigger computers desktop
      • Tablet at home
        • Special equipment for placing the tablets
  • Her school takes weekly field trips that she enjoys 
    • Movies
    • zoo
  • Interests
    • Favorite movies: titanic, Mamamia Cinderella
    • Favorite music: country music, soft rocks
    • Loves the color red 
  • Kim does therapy horse back riding every week
    • They have specialized equipment to get her from her wheelchair onto the horse
    • Kim loves horses

Kim’s Acrylic Painting during Interview

 

The way Kim is holding the brush with her left hand

Kim’s pottery with paint

Kim’s bedroom miniature that she made by herself

Kim’s painting of Titanic(her favorite movie) during her art class

Bracelet made by Kim

Discussions and Ideation Reviews

Kim enjoys spending her free time playing video games on her tablet and computer. When we learned Kim has limited motor control over her right hand we were inquisitive about her experience using a keyboard with one hand. The layout of the keyboard is designed for users to use with two hands. We thought there was potential to create a personalized keyboard for Kim to use when playing video games on the computer. This keyboard would have a layout specialized for only using your left hand and would only include keys that Kim uses when gaming. In the second interview, we pitched this design to Kim to gauge whether she would want or use this device. After pitching the specialized keyboard to Kim we learned that she doesn’t really use the keys when gaming on her computer since her computer is touch screen. She was still interested in the concept and the potential of using keys rather than touch screen.

The second design was inspired by Kim’s passion for painting. Kim described how much she enjoys painting in her art class and even demonstrated painting to us during the second interview. From our observation, Kim needs assistance setting up the painting supplies, changing out the water to clean the brushes, and cleaning up the supplies. Kim also struggles with cleaning the brushes and keeping the supplies secure since she can only use one hand. After observing these challenges Kim faces when painting, we began to devise ways we could mitigate them. We developed some ideas to create an electronic paint pallet that could be controlled by Kim with a set of buttons. The pallet can be rotated by Kim using a joystick(the pallet has LEDs next to each crevice that light up has it is being turned). The pallet can expel dirty water and refill with clean water from a tank of water stored within the device. The pallet has holes to attach each paint tube underneath and seal the paint. Kim can control how much paint is dispensed onto the pallet using the set of control buttons. When Kim rotates the pallet using the joystick and chooses the paint tube she wants to dispense(using the joystick and the selection is indicated by which LED lights up) she presses a button to confirm the selection. Once she confirms the selection, the desired paint is dispensed into the pallet. These are just some of the original features we came up with to assist Kim while painting. There is potential to come up with other ways to make painting a more independent task for Kim.