Design students develop shopping app for elderly people
The work took place during the DesignCamp2014. The result of the collaboration is so promising that software company &hype will now look into whether it can be realized.
- I was sure that working with our product would be a huge challenge for the students, and therefore I must admit that I smiled a bit before we began. I thought that designers were mostly someone who could design chairs – and our company develops IT solutions, says Mikkel Overgaard, partner in the new Danish company &hype.
What can design do for us?
The company produces mobile phone-based loyalty programmes for retail, such as apps or via SMS, so that the customers don’t have to handle piles of old-fashioned plastic cards. A discipline that &hype, in Mikkel Overgaard’s own words, is “a 100-meter champion in”.
So why did the company even sign up to collaborate with design students in this year’s design camp?
- I had heard a lot about D2i - Design to innovate (co-organizer of the DesignCamp2014, ed.) through my network and had also talked to them at an event at Koldinghus a few years ago. So I was a bit curious to find out what they could do for us when I got an invitation for the DesignCamp, says Mikkel Overgaard. An invitation he and the company accepted, and gave some interesting results.
Mrs. Andersen needs half a litre of whole milk
- The assignment the students were presented with was to look at how a company like ours can sidestep into the senior sector. And this resulted in a lot of new ideas, says Mikkel Overgaard.
A group of four design students from South Africa, India, Hungary and Denmark came up with an app solution where relatives to elderly people suffering from dementia can note shopping lists, but also special needs. The information is passed on to the sales staff when the elderly person enters a store – thus solving both the elderly person’s and the relatives’ problem. The information is sent via a small transmitter that the elderly people can carry on their clothes, for instance “disguised” as a brooch with a picture of the grandchildren.
Talented students and new methods for development
- It was really interesting for us that they could point out these kinds of needs to be met. I love the idea of going into the category of “physical products”, and I was impressed by all the research the students did in such a short time. It really opened our eyes to the elderly people as a target group – something we hadn’t focused on before, says Mikkel Overgaard.
All in all, he is therefore more than excited about the introduction to design methods the DesignCamp has given him. He wouldn’t hesitate about using designers for future idea development projects, and he is also very open to the possibilities of further development of the new product:
- If it is a marketable product, I will definitely look more into it. It will probably not be next week or next month, because it will require capacity that the company does not have today. But it is absolutely something we will have in mind in future considerations, concludes Mikkel Overgaard.
