IDO

What it does

IDO improves motivation and experience in urotherapy by implementing a drinking bottle, a wearable, and an app. This helps establishing a healthy urinary and drinking behaviour. Personalizing, providing insights, motivating, and activating.

Your inspiration

Improving home urotherapy for children was a theme presented by Minze Health (Belgian health company) through Lola Bladt (employee and PhD student at UA). Through research, observations at the urotherapy department of UZA and Wilhelmina Children's Hospital in Utrecht, focus groups, and expert interviews, it quickly became clear that children with urinary problems often have poor drinking habits as well. This connection is not understood by the children, and I wanted to change that. This led to the idea of translating the drinking and urination cycle into products that can represent it.

How it works

Physical products: The drinking bottle and wearable symbolize the urinary circulation and interact simultaneously. The drinking bottle encourages the child to drink more and brings a positive change in his or her drinking behaviour by measuring and recording this behaviour using a capacity sensor. The water consumed by the child visibly enters the pee wearable through the screen, which fills with water continuously until it is full and the child should urinate. The child receives visual feedback, so to speak, about what is happening in his body. Two platforms: The recorded data are brought together in the app. Through this app, the patient stays informed about how he and his IDO are doing. Both useful information and fun relaxation options can be found there. This data can also be viewed by the physician using the physician platform.

Design process

The design process began with a survey of the current state of the art. This involved not only reviewing existing treatments and products for children with functional incontinence, but also examining additional elements such as psychological and therapeutic aspects. Desk research was followed up by interviews, observations and focus groups with stakeholders. The obtained findings were monitored and adjusted to get focused and direct feedback on how these insights could be integrated into the design process. This resulted into a product idea that in turn was exposed to brainstorming sessions with fellow students and feedback from various focus groups that provided a fresh perspective on the various sub-problems. Different designs were generated and transformed into multiple low- to medium-fidelity prototypes and 3D printed objects, to test out and improve the needs and interactions. Verification and validation were done under the form of a principle prototype focusing mainly on use, interaction and ergonomics. The feedback and suggestions from this resulted in the final design of IDO.

How it is different

Current products and innovations that support the process of urotherapy are often based on scientific evidence, however do not set their focus on the user's needs, have outdated technology and often only support part of the process. This causes the process to be perceived as drawn out and intensive by the child and not enough motivation and commitment can be generated. IDO not only provides support throughout the entire urotherapy process by implementing a connected ecosystem that relies on objective parameters instead of subjective ones. Also, this product distinguishes itself by giving the child, parent and physician, insight into the process hence generating motivation by integrating various aspects of play and demonstrating the important role the child has in this process.

Future plans

In this process, I invested a lot of time in verifying the concept with the various focus groups. This has ensured that there was much focus on bringing forward the needs and requirements of the user. The concept design was received with great enthusiasm. Still, further verification and research is necessary before bringing it to market. The psychological factors, cultural differences and age-related characteristics are aspects that can be further explored and deepened.

Awards