I created this space to remember, reflect on, and to celebrate the works of my journey as a designer.
© 2022 Glenda Yeo
© 2022 Glenda Yeo
Interviewed 15 seniors. Studied literature reviews. Consulted industry experts. Prototyped ideas. Repeat.*
*This initial research phase was done as part of the NCSS Sector Design Challenge 2019. This project is currently still ongoing for further development & validation.
1. Most seniors want to stay active but do not have a strong motivation to do so
2. Seniors want to be part of a community, but many are uncertain on how to join one, or whether they can fit in
3. Most seniors want to contribute meaningfully but often question the value they can bring
With the key findings from our users, our team developed a progressive engagement model where we believe will help to shift paradigms & perceptions of seniors in our society. Drawing reference to Singapore Armed Forces, we believe that staying healthy and fit is foundational to ensuring a strong and resilient force. We strive also to create opportunities for our seniors to improve their social connectivity, and empower them to be meaningful contributors even in their golden years.
Our team identified several aspects that were instrumental in setting SAFSG apart in its mission to eradicate social isolation among seniors in Singapore. With each of these aspects, we started to draw out different user flows to visualize how the SAFSG experience would look like.
We built simple prototypes and tested them with seniors around us, iterating as we went along. However, we reached a point where we realised that the flows that we designed were functional, however it didn't encapsulate what we felt SAFSG was about.
This led us to return to the drawing board, where we challenged ourselves with big and difficult questions, so as to reimagine the SAFSG experience and realign ourselves to our dream.
With renewed sparks in our hearts, we conducted another round of user testing with the iterated designs. Through Zoom calls, we brought the seniors through different design triggers to explain the concept of SAFSG, and gathered their feedback on the relevancy and relatability of SAFSG.
Reviewing the transcripts from the interview, quotes were coded and mapped in an affinity map. We looked into the key themes that surfaced & delved into the underlying issues, leading us to three main insights. These insights guided us as we relooked at the relevancy & impact of the features in our pipeline, and allowed us to re-prioritize accordingly. An example of a feature that was prioritised was the ‘What you’ll experience’ feature (See below for feature in red outline).
From our interviews, we learnt that seniors are seeking tangible value and benefits for their lives, and this gave us the opportunity to visualize tangible values & impact of the activities so that we can better motivate seniors to participate in activities on SAFSG.
We are in the midst of conducting pilot runs with seniors and different organisations. As part of this process, we run stakeholder workshops with organisations to understand their needs and workflows, and work closely with them to set up the processes for the pilot run with seniors.
The above workshop was conducted pre-circuit breaker, under all Covid-19 safety regulations imposed by the Singapore government.
Each pilot run begins with an onboarding session for the seniors involved. Through the onboarding session, seniors learn about the heartbeat of SAFSG, the goals and expectations of the pilot, and how to use SAFSG. Time is allocated for the seniors to get hands-on practice, from signing up for activities to receiving their rewards! A survey is also conducted to gather the necessary information for the team to assess the impact of SAFSG.
These sessions were conducted with adherence to all Covid-19 safety regulations imposed by the Singapore government.
On 14 November 2019, Team 'Ministry of Hope Affairs', presented 'Senior Active Force SG' at the National Council of Social Service 'Sector Design Challenge 2019', to a panel of judges across the social and design sectors. We are grateful, pleased and honoured to announce that we came in first place! As a result, we received seed money to further develop SAFSG, and the connections made through the session opened up many possibilities for this dream of ours.
Special thanks to the teams from NCSS and NUS ISS for journeying with us through the challenge.
We are a group of six fun-loving friends – Ethan, Haojie, Hweexian, Naomi, Pengho & Glenda. We each hold different day jobs, we're all from different walks of life, but we're united by a common vision to serve, love and bring hope to the lives of the seniors of Singapore!