Telekom
Telekom Peace of mind:
an alexa skill designed for the elderlies
Challenge
Elderly people want to maintain independence & stay at home for longer.
The cost of moving into a nursing home is escalating and becoming an increasing issue, for local
and national Government, insurers and individuals.
There are no affordable or compelling solution for the pains.
Telekom asked us to find where we can make the greatest impact and help elderly people
to live longer at home in comfort and with peace of mind.
My role
I was in charge of leading the team, designing the service and supporting the development.
Discover
We started by running qualitative research through face to face interviews, field observation and online surveys
in order to understand our audience and reveal actionable insights.
Define
The research uncovered that:
a majority of people have a strong wish to stay independent: elderlies are not different from the adults they have been for the past decades and loosing independence represent '“the end”.
have an active social life: human stays human, no matter how old they are. And more often than not it means there is a need to socialize and share time with the loved ones.
there is a dilemma between not wanting to use current solution for elderly safety (ex: emergency button) because it brings a feeling of being labeled as “old” and the fear of having an accident at home.
are interested in learning how to use technology: this is tied to the need of feeling independent but also still relevant for society.
We brought the research results into a co-creation workshop with the client in order to generate ideas with as much knowledge in the room as possible.
Design
After refining concepts from the workshop, and evaluating what service was the most desirable and feasible, I started working on what we called Notfall.
A freemium service in the form of an Alexa skill designed with an elderly audience in mind.
The service focuses on contacting people’s loved ones when they need assistance.
Voice controlled, it brings peace of mind for a growing aging population, with reduced mobility and physical constrains.
The emergency contacts numbers are managed via a web app linked to the user’s Amazon account.
I designed the skill throughout 4 sprints. Each sprint ended by user testing in order to iterate on the next one.