MATHER FOUNDATION

HOW MIGHT WE create community and combat loneliness in a remote environment for older adults participating in Mather's Telephone Topics program?

Our team of four Northwestern EDI students partnered with the Mather Foundation to develop a research informed connection-driven digital learning platform to help the Mather seniors age well in their community. We conducted ethnographic research, design research insight and framework analysis, and had weekly client meetings. Finally, tested our final prototype.

Final deliverables can be downloaded below.

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Project management lead
Analogous research framework analysis
Stakeholder (client, participant, facilitator) interviews
Concept ideation and sketches
Artifact development
Storytelling script for client pitch

CLIENT & COURSE DELIVERABLES

Stakeholder research insights
Analogous research frameworks
Weekly client meetings
Concept sketches
Prototypes
Detailed service blueprint
Service playbook for client implementation
Midterm and final project presentation

RESEARCH & DESIGN PROCESS

RESEARCH & SYNTHESIS

After receiving our design brief, we began by creating frameworks to understand analogous research and stakeholders. We then conducted two rounds of stakeholder research.

We used key insights to determine our problem statement, form 'How Might We' statement(s), and brainstorm potential solutions.

IDEATE & PROTOTYPE

Our brainstormed solutions were continually iterated through sketches and low fidelity prototypes.

We continued to cycle through refining and combining our proposed concepts, and tested these through continual stakeholder research in addition to running our own prototype Chat session with our cohort.

FINAL SOLUTION

Our team delivered a final presentation, including a detailed service playbook for concept implementation, to the Mather Foundation. We developed a persona and navigated through the user journey narrative to build empathy and tell our consumer's journey through our final Mather Chat concept.