top coat
My team (from left to right) Priscilla (me), Madeleine Dile, and Annemarie Guillen showing Marie Ennis (back left) and Jackie Smith (back right) our prototype.
After visiting and having conversations with older adults, we realized a problem: women ages 65+ experience a variety of negative emotions at the doctor's office.
We met Kathy, a older woman who told us she never went to the doctor because
"they might find something wrong with me."
Working with the older female adult population in Los Angeles, we created Top Coat, a service that helps older women (ages 65+) reduce anxiety around going to doctor’s appointments by providing a nail salon atmosphere in the clinic waiting room.
This project originated from the Social Innovation Design Lab course (through the Brittingham Social Entrepreneurship Lab at USC). Using IDEO's user-centered design thinking methodology, we innovated for the older adult population in Los Angeles, conducting user interviews and research in various community centers in Los Angeles. We pinpointed several pain points and assets in the older female adult community and focused on how we use could use nail salons to help older women reduce their anxiety around going to doctor’s appointments. After iterating through several prototypes of products and services, we created Top Coat.
The Process:
1 — Field Research.
To innovate with the older adult community, my team first visited several senior enrichment centers to talk with older adults to understand their lives, dreams, needs, and constraints.
These method cards were used to start conversations with older adults to learn about their daily routines, loved ones, favorite snacks, etc.
2 — Define.
We then combined several recurring problems we defined with opportunistic assets to create a "how might we" statement —
How might we use nail salons to help older women (ages 65+) reduce their anxiety around going to doctor's appointments?
3 — Ideate.
Armed with post-its and markers, we wrote up anything related to our problems and assets, encouraging as many wild ideas as possible.
In this case, we mind-mapped ways to use the asset of dyed hair to tackle embarrassment wearing hearing aids.
4 — Prototype.
With a better idea of how nail salons and doctor's appointments could be combined, we created Top Coat:
Top Coat is a service that helps older women (ages 65+) reduce anxiety around going to doctor’s appointments by providing a nail salon atmosphere in the clinic waiting room.
The storyboard below explains how the service works.
