As the baby boomer generation enters retirement, they increasingly wish to live independently within the comfort of their own homes longer than previous generations. With this in mind, my team applied the design thinking process to develop a product that could help them to achieve their goal. 

As the baby boomers continue ageing, they start having some issues such as mobility, mental decline and isolation, which makes it more difficult for them to continue living in their own homes. 

To understand their needs and develop a product that could meet those needs, we applied Design Thinking, a creative problem-solving process with a human-centered approach. 

We identified three opportunity areas where we could innovate and design a product that could help elderly folks to continue living independently:

1.  All Connected: addressing the isolation issues.

2. Smart Move: addressing the mobility issues.

3. Safe at Home: addressing the mental decline issues. 

We reviewed once again the interview notes and the insights identified, and decided to continue developing the opportunity area #1 All Connected. 

As a team we performed brainstorming sessions that helped us to identify many different solutions that could address this issue.

We kept building on the 4 most promising ideas and performed a quick test with potential users to determine which idea should we  select for further development.

The results showed that the "Smart Coffee Mug" concept was the most attractive idea to them.

We also did a market research looking for products that already exist on the market and that could be considered direct competition for our product.

We purchased  some of them and tested them with the objective to identified issues and pain points that we must solve when refining our product. 

Once we selected the idea, we performed additional brainstorming sessions that helped us to continue improving the concept and add more appropriate features.   As a result, we came up with the concept "The Coffee Klatch" which has two components:

1. The Smart Coffee Warmer: a gadget that allows the users to easily connect and communicate with their loved ones while drinking coffee in their spare time. 

2. The Coffee Klatch App: a social app that allows the users to share the most important moments from their past with people they care about the most. 

I lead the testing process, recruiting participants and visiting them at their home.  I explained the concept and showed the prototypes developed, as well as asked a series of questions to understand their impressions and took notes of their feedback that I shared with the rest of the team. 

During the testing we explore more insights regarding:

• What features they liked the most and the least

• How would they use the product

• Where would they use the product

• What design was more attractive to them (shape and color)

• Willingness to purchase the product and price range

We analyzed the insights and incorporated the changes into our design.  We developed a second version of the prototype that included:

1. A Website

2. Smart Coffee Warmer

3. Coffee Klatch App

Sample of a website to promote and sell  the product

The Smart Coffee Warmer is a gadget that not only allows users to keep their drink warm, but also it allows them to stay connected with their loved ones by sending automatic notifications through the Coffee Klatch App indicating that the user is available for a conversation.  It also provides information such as weather and recent notifications, playing out loud messages that people have sent to the user, as well as answering or making calls to users connected. 

The Coffee Klatch app helps seniors to stay connected with their loved ones and avoid suffering from isolation.  This app allows users to perform different activities such as:

• Share their stories with the people they love

• Explore other people's stories

• Communicate with others via voice messages 

• Start a Coffee Klatch group with people that are available 

• Control the settings of the Smart Coffee Warmer  

The app helps the users cherish all those important events in their lives and to pass down their memories to the next generations to come. 

To continue developing our idea we identified some critical steps to be addressed in the short and medium term:

• Finish testing including evaluation of colors, materials, and size

• Integrate changes based on feedback

• Develop the app

• Define commercial production

• Define the distribution channels

• Develop the best marketing strategy for the user and the customer

• Define final price

• Launch website