PT-Pal Speculative Design
A physical therapy game and robot program that increases patient motivation and engagement, speculatively designed for the year 2050.
Overview
Problem
More than 50% of physical therapy patients don't adhere to their prescribed exercises at home. This leads to longer recovery times, incomplete recovery, and increased risk of future injuries.
Goal
Utilize futuristic technology advances to design a plausible solution for the year 2050.
Project Details
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UX Researcher & Product Designer of four-person team, in collaboration with the New York Design Factory.
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My Contributions: literature reviews, user interviews, future scenario development, stakeholder map, persona, behavior analysis, service blueprint, prototype, one-pager.
Generative Research
Literature Review
We started with a literature review to research the current trends and future needs of rehabilitation. We evaluated areas of growth and areas with potential problems or gaps.
We discovered:
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An aging population driving the industry.
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Current barriers to technology and medicine.
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Potential environmental impacts on the landscape of healthcare facilities.
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A lack of physical therapists and increase in technological advancements leading to a growing trend in at-home care.
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A key problem in orthopedic physical therapy: nonadherence to at-home exersizes.
Competitive Analysis
We conducted a competitive analysis of emerging technology that could be used in rehabilitation care.
We discovered:
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Emerging technologies including holograms, wearables, and AI / smart tech that could be applied to physical therapy solutions.
Future Scenario
We used ARUPs 2050 futures as inspiration and created a STEEPLE to define a holistic picture of the future we were designing for.
We found that designing sustainable, portable solutions that patients could use at-home were important in our future scenario.
User Interviews
We conducted semi-structured interviews with 5 orthopedic physical therapy patients, and 1 personal injury lawyer to discover patient feelings, needs, motivations, and pain points.
Needs discovered:
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Progress Tracking
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Guidance
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Motivation
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Enjoyment
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Convinence
Define
Stakeholder Map
Persona
Ideate
Behavioral Analysis
We conducted a Behavior Analysis to identify anchors for change to achieve greater engagement in at-home Physical Therapy
We identified key opportunities for intervention, including making home exercises a daily habit, setting realistic goals, and tracking progress.
Ideation through Lenses
We conducted ideation through lenses with the interaction, architectural, cognitive, and ludic lenses.
This helped us develop innovative ideas ranging from holographic guides, to robot companions, to wearables, to neural mapping.
Solution Mapping
We chose to move forward with PT-pal because it aligned closely with our future scenario of accessible, tech-enabled rehabilitation. Its playful, interactive approach met user needs and introduced innovative approaches.
Prototype
Iterative Research
Before we started our prototyping, we needed to conduct more generative research on personal household robots and trends in emerging robotic technology to solidify our future scenario, and guide our robot design decisions.
In tandem with a literature review, we conducted 15 informal guerrilla user interviews to understand consumers’ feelings about different robot designs.
We uncovered users’ fears of large, humanoid robots, and discovered higher likability and comfort with small, “cute” robots.
Morphological Chart
Service Blueprint
Prototyping
Takeaways
Meeting Our Goals
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PT-Pal helps patients stay motivated and engaged at-home by turning their exercises into a story-driven video game.
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Our robot program downloads into your standard home robot for hands-on support during sessions.
Challenges
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My biggest challenge was narrowing the scope and defining the future scenario for this speculative design project. Teamwork and iterative research throughout the process helped me tackle this challenge.
Future Work
Going forward, I would love to test our full concept with users to further understand the real-life implications and refine the design.
