Our previous posts have touched upon the feedback we have received from interviews, our research, methods, and goals. Currently, all of this is being used to build a prototype of the system we have been designing through research. Below are screenshots of the design iterations that our application website has gone through. For our final presentation, we will present our research findings and how they influenced the final system we design and how the feedback from our research can be seen throughout our application website.
Initial Site map (used for mapping out how the pages would connect to one another):
Interview on Thursday with Suzan Krauland, Geriactic Care Specialist
Osher interviews/kits on Friday. We received an overwhelming amount of feedback and actually had to turn some participants away due to time constraints, the holiday interference, and the need to move forward and complete the design aspects of this project.
Research of universal designs and codes
Defining our five target areas (this will be done at Sunday’s meeting).
The results of Carol’s Card sort. Carol has been at Charles Morris for over seven years. Her cards start with the pink and move down in order of priority.Carol building her ideal layoutCarol’s layout. The blocks lining the right and left sides of the structure represent resident’s rooms. The top and bottom blocks (2 on each side) are restrooms/shower rooms. The chess pieces in the middle are nursing stations. The three Yahtzee chips in the middle represent the dinning room. The other Yahtzee chips represent common areas such as the activities room, community room, etc.
Yesterday, Prisca and I visited a rural home in Butler County.
The home itself was 58 years old and hosted 30 residents. Residents could chose to have a one bedroom, shared bedroom, or apartment, all of which attach to the main (long) hallway. Each room or apartment had its own bathroom and several of them have a porch or outdoor access. Residents in this home are allowed to go to the kitchen and order snacks 24/7. However, meals are generally a set menu. Residents wear call buttons that resemble fall buttons that are advertised on TV. This is helpful so that they are never too far away from a call button. However, I wonder how residents feel about having to wear or carry this buttons all the time.
Compared to our visits at Charles Morris, this home in-sourced several services and did not have designated facilities for them. For instance, they had their own pharmacist and medical director, but no facilities for them to use. Additionally, they offer “workout classes” but hosted them in a community room, not a gym or rehab center. Physical and occupational resources are imported to the home and w are under the assumption that these appointments take place in resident’s rooms. Several outings are offered to residents including trips to the movies, malls, etc.
Despite not having designated rooms for some of the above amenities, the rooms such as the dinning room and community rooms were much more aesthetically pleasing with large windows, natural sunlight, and home-like decor. They resemble some of the traits that Judy and Jerry spoke about when filling out our kits. However, there were several less desirable characteristics such as the long hallways with the dinning room at the very end and the nurses stations tucked away in corners.
Despite all of this, our host insisted that the layout of her facility was perfect and that she wouldn’t change anything. When asking her to do the card sort, she barely participated and said that amenities don’t matter, its the services that do. She said that if she was looking to put her mother into a home she would want to know “if her medical needs would be addressed…the staff ratio, etc.”. Even after explaining to her that we believe that services and how they are offered intersect with the layout of a facility, her opinion did not change. When asking her to take part in the design aspect of our kit, she once again could not imagine changes or an ideal other than what existed. However, she did state that has some concerns with layout in regards to fire safety, as she has been caught in a fire before. However, her layout had rooms lining each side of the hallway, the dinning room at one end, and the living/community room at the other.
This visit was a learning experience as we found that kits and design strategies do not work for everybody. Instead our insights were derived through our own compare/contrast exercises during the tour. Additionally, we obtained a useful artifact from this visit, which is a list of Pennsylvania Resident Rights.
On Saturday, I ventured to Munhall to survey a few of my relatives using our creative kits. I started off by asking them how healthy they currently feel on a one to five scale. One is the worst possible score, five is the best possible score. Judy said that she feels like a three, while Jerrry mentioned that he felt like a four. When asking how they imagine they will feel in the next five years, both commented with the same scores that they previously gave. Although they are already retired, I asked them where they envision themselves in the future of their retirement. Jerry responded that he prefers one level living and that he would like “all the modern upgrades for safety in bathrooms and stairs”. On the other hand, Judy, mentioned that she would prefer a patio home or apartment, maintenance free living, a place geared towards seniors, and possibly somewhere warm. When asked how they think their lives would change if they had to enter a care facility, Jerry responded that it makes sense to do so when you can’t drive anymore. Judy stated that there are a lot of pluses to assisted living. However, she also commented that nursing homes need to be improved (citing her experience caring for our Aunt towards the end of her life).
While these questions were asked, many other comments were made regarding what comfort and amenities my family is looking for. Below is a list of amenities they would like to see:
Fireplaces in common areas
An outside sitting area
Views of nature/outdoors/weather
home-like, warm, and welcoming
Windows with a nice environment outside
circle layout, with an atrium on the inside of the circle
While describing these traits, a few key quotes came up. When Jerry was describing his ideal view he said, “I don’t want to be locked up in a little 8×10 room and not know anything”. Judy said, “The problem with nursing homes is that she shouldn’t be called homes at all. They feel like hospitals”.
Below are the results of Jerry’s card sort of priorities. As a reminder, the amenities are listed in order of importance, starting in the left column and moving down, then going to the second column and down, etc. The card that is written on says “Common area fireplaces” and “natural light”.
The following is Judy’s card sort. The first hand written card says “personal living space”. The second says “library/reading room”.
Card sort in action
The next activity was the layout aspect of the kit. Jerry decided to use the kit to show the layout of his ideal room. While Judy used the kit to show the main floor of her ideal facility. Together they decided that resident’s rooms would be on the second floor and common areas would be on the first floor. Jerry noted that rooms should have a sliding door and balcony and should over look the outdoor areas below. The first thing that Judy did was to design the outdoor spaces and center courtyard. She wanted windows looking into the courtyard all around the main floor. Additionally she designed community rooms with fireplaces, and entry way to “sit and watch people come and go”, an outdoor area with a path leading to a pond, and a shared gym for active residents and those who need rehab. She also mentioned a pool, but then left it out due to “regulations”. While physically making the space, Judy once again said “Everyone should have access to windows”.
Below is a pictures of Judy’s design:
As you can see, Judy stuck with her circular design. The forward right square is activity room. To the left of it is the library, with a fire place. Behind the library is the entry way with places for residents to sit. Behind that is the community room and behind that (last block on the left) is the dinning room. Next to the dinning room is the gym/rehab center and in front of it is the place of worship. Finally, the last vertical block is the hair center and manicurist. The center area is an outdoor area/atrium with trees, chairs and tables. Behind the layout are a few chess pieces that represent the outdoor area with trails and benches that Judy talked about.
Next is Jerry’s ideal layout:
Jerry’s layout is of a private room for a married couple. There are two separate beds as marked by the purple blocks. Above those blocks are two loungers/chairs. There is TV at the bottom left corner. The bottom center are sliding doors to go onto the attached porch. The long blocks on the left side (and right) are shelves for photos and collectable items. The large block in the top center (which is slightly cut off in this picture) is the on-suite bathroom. Finally the round circles are other room decorations.
Having Judy and Jerry complete the kits reaffirmed what I hypothesized layout would look like–central and easily accessible for group spaces. Additionally, I imagined that aesthetic mattered and these two participants strongly backed this belief.
Design and Policy 