Nader

What it does

With Nader elders can communicate with their loved ones through written messages. They write their message, check the box for the right recipient and put it in the product. This scans the message and sends it to the recipient, who can answer with the app.

Your inspiration

My grandmother cannot use a smartphone, like many other grandparents. This makes it difficult to communicate with her on a regular basis. Due to COVID-19, my busy school schedule and the distance, I would love to be able to communicate with her, besides the visits and phone calls. On the other hand I really like the written messages I get from her when I get a birthday card or a little note. She likes this as well. Furthermore she likes it when we send pictures from our latest vacation.

How it works

Nader is a product-service that consists of a product and notepad. The elder can write messages and indicate the right recipient. Nader provides a platform for family and friends in the shape of an application and a website The elder writes a message on the paper and checks the box corresponding to the right recipient. He/she puts the message in the slot of the product. The product will scan the message and sends it to the recipient automatically. The product will give feedback to the elder with an animation on the hidden display behind the wooden surface. The relative gets a notification from this new message and can answer this by sending written or typed text or a photo. This answer will be printed by the product of the elder.

Design process

The research phase included: desk research, multiple surveys, interviews and brainstorms with other students. This gave me insights to further work on the problem. Next, some design proposals were made. After discussing with the stakeholders, adjustments were incorporated to arrive at new concepts. Here, for example, the stakeholders thought of a digital bulletin board on which the family could write messages , an audio player with voice messages and a jewel that would warm up when the older person was thought of. Together with the stakeholders, I decided to continue working with the bulletin board. For this, we were looking for a more analogue feeling for the elder in order to lower the digital threshold. This also makes the product usable for those who have no digital knowledge. In addition, the physical aspect also gives a warmer feeling to the communication so that it will be considered more valuable. A few prototypes were made and tested with the target group. Subsequently, some formal adjustments were made to achieve the final result.

How it is different

Nader is the only product service that allows seniors to communicate with their families and loved ones with written text. This increases the frequency of contact and reduces loneliness and social isolation by providing more options for communication. Supplementary, Nader also provides a sense of value by allowing the elderly person to keep track of written messages and photos and the ability to refer back to them whenever they need to. In addition, it is easy for the family to contact them since they can do so on their smartphone as they are already used to with other messaging apps. This allows them to fit this into their busy time schedule. There are already some products that offer aspects that Nader has to offer, but there is nothing on the market yet that combines everything. For example, most products respond to digital solutions and to solutions where the older person cannot necessarily respond.

Future plans

In the future, it is important to look at an option to connect two products so that two people without smartphones can be in touch with each other. In addition, it is also important to look for an alternative for those who do have a smartphone. For example, we can look for an option to replace the scanner with the smartphone so that the product can be offered a lot cheaper. This preserves the warm feeling of the physical and written messages, as well as the convenience of sending the message.

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