Winnie
A social companion to help seniors remain engaged and connected to friends family and their community.
Winnie prevents social isolation by facilitating and enabling the interaction between seniors, friends, family and their community. Winnie Improves seniors quality of life through aiding mobility and encourages individuals to stay active and promoting participation in stimulating activities.
Client
Thesis Project
Year
2018
Awards
Good Design Award
The Challenge
Elderly Australians consistently ranked relationships with friends and family as the second most important factor determining quality of life the first being general health. Despite this 20% of older Australians are experiencing social isolation, which can often result in declines in both mental and physical health.
"Winnie presents a creative and holistic solution to a genuine and well-identified problem"
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- Good Design Awards Australia
Personalised prompts to suit individuals interests and skills.
AI learning is utilised to provide individuals with personalised information and actives. Helping, to share their knowledge, skills or experiences.
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Personal Assistant
Helps to set reminders and notifies the user about events that they have booked into their calendar.
Live Information
Motivates the user to become involved in their local community, by sharing events happening in their area and news.
Increasing mobility both within the home and out in the wider community will help to improve independence and enable seniors to live more actively. The elderly population has a variety of mobility needs which vary greatly between individuals; Winnie explores possible solutions to cater for a number of these different needs.
Improving mobility
What should a robot look like?
Can an object express a sense of compassion and empathy? Winnie attempts to do this through body language, with the head like screen looking up at the user with a sense of empathy.
Winnie’s design language aims to remove the negative stigma associated with mobility aids. This has been attempted by using materials and a design language that is more commonly used in lifestyle products or furniture.
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The form has been broken into simple geometric shapes to create a minimalist design language. Reducing the current perceptions of robots as being complicated and intimidating.
Developing a relationship with the user
Developing a positive relationship is crucial, enabling the user to accept and interact with Winnie within their home and in their community. This is done through the use of speech, sound, movement and physical appearance to convey emotion and a sense understanding. Additionally, the name Winnie was chosen to help with this, being both a familiar name and easily pronounced.
Functions
Co design sessions were held with professionals within the aged care sector, brainstorming possible functions for the robot and how to motivate users to participate in activities.
This helped to create a holistic view of the product, considering a number of different people such as carers, nurses, families, friends and people in the wider the community.
Personalised prompts to suit individuals interests and skills.
AI learning is utilised to provide individuals with personalised information and actives. Helping, to share their knowledge, skills or experiences.
​
Personal Assistant
Helps to set reminders and notifies the user about events that they have booked into their calendar.
Live Information
Motivates the user to become involved in their local community, by sharing events happening in their area and news.
Connection with the digital world.
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The product’s large screen displays messages, pictures and allows video chats with family and friends. Enabling, seniors to communicate with younger generations.
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Interaction
Winnie initiates conversation when familiar sounds such as the TV are detected and vocally suggests a possible activity. The user can then accept, decline or ask for more information by responding vocally or by scrolling though the options on the screen.
Carrying the weight
Winnie lets the user walk freely by carrying belongings, shopping, medical requirements and books in its large storage compartment.
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Reducing strength and stamina means that seniors aren’t always able to walk distances particularly when carrying bags, Winnie allows them to comfortably walk further. the number of journeys that can be made by foot is increased, instead having to drive or use public transport. Winnie does this through an arrangement of sensors and HD cameras as well as tracking the users remote accompanying the individual on walks or shopping trips.
A Back up Solution
Winnie offers the user a sense of confidence knowing that they can easily complete their journey if fatigued or unable to walk. By transforming from a small robot into a mode of transport, lowering itself to the ground and folding into a seat.
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Conclusion
Winnie presents a platform that could be adapted to serve a multitude of people from the elderly or disabled end users to their family, society members and/or healthcare professionals. It creates a vision of how technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics and autonomous vehicles could be used and adapted to help improve quality of life.
