TESTEN?TESTEN!

What it does

"TESTEN?TESTEN!" is a home antibody test kit. It provides a new way of mass screening tests and the collection of test results during a pandemic. Official institutions can certify this kit and post it to the citizens. Citizens can test by themselves at home.

Your inspiration

Governments can understand how many people have immunity in a pandemic through antibody tests, and therefore decide when to bring people safely out of lockdown. To achieve these goals, we need to take a large number of antibody tests. Currently, people have to go to a test station. The test process has a big risk of infection because of the crowd gathering. Additionally, to take blood from venous or finger is painful and uncomfortable. In my opinion, this scenario is conceivable in the future. People receive a test kit at home, then register and test in a safer space. What's more, this test is painless, needleless, and user-friendly.

How it works

This test device adopts a new technology that uses high-velocity microneedles and slight vacuum pressure to collect a few drops of blood from the forearm's capillary. The device is very easy for one-handed use. After sticking the device on the forearm, users only need to follow the user guide on the device to complete the test: 1. Press the blood collection switches on both sides to collect blood; 2. Wait for one minute until the blood collection cell completely turns red; 3. Press the sample diluent button, and the diluent will mix with the blood and flow to the absorbent pad. Finally, the test result will appear in the result area. After the test, users can put the tested device back into the box and check their test results according to the result-chart. Then post it back to institutions.

Design process

After determining the concept of the home antibody test kit and understanding the new blood collection technology, I started to design the test device and the whole system. In this process, my main concerns were to make sure this test kit is reliable and easy for people to use at home. So my design processes mainly based on 3 points: more comfortable to use, easier to understand test process, quick and safe for the researcher to collect the results' data. According to user research and self-experience, I found that the finger prick tests on the market are painful and difficult to use. Users need to pierce the sensitive finger with a pricker, and then drop the blood onto the sample pad. At the same time, the blood will spray everywhere. Therefore, I tried to combine the new blood collection technology to simplify the test device and the whole process. After sketching, 3d-modeling, I determined a clean and easy-to-understand interface of the test device and designed the infographic of the user guide on the band-aid. Researchers can scan the test results and id code without opening the package after receiving the tested kit returned by users to ensure the safety of the data collection working.

How it is different

Compared with the current test product, the "Testen?Testen!" test kit provides a safe and comfortable antibody test method. The whole process is needleless and painless, providing users with friendly and convenient test experience. And it takes into the security and efficiency of data collection. The redesign of the packaging can help researchers to collect data quickly.

Future plans

"TESTEN?TESTEN!" is not only a better solution for COVID-19. In the future, with the development and popularization of medical technology, "TESTEN?TESTEN!" will also play an essential role in the next pandemic to control the epidemic more effectively. Furthermore, it provides a humanized thinking method for the design of test products.

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