We attempted to engage with the elderly by contacting organizations that worked with elderly. However, we were rejected after many attempts. Some organizations were unable to provide us any opportunities to interact with the elderly while others thought that we were not professional enough to engage with the elderly on a personal basis on their problems.
When we were rejected, we were definitely very disheartened and panicky as there was little time to work with. However, we decided that we had no choice but to try find elderly in our own community to understand their needs. Therefore, we went down to Bukit Panjang, a neighborhood that a lot of elderly appear (testified by Darren) to find elderly to interview and interact with.
Three of the many photos of Bukit Panjang, from which we found elderly to try talking to and finding out about their problems.
Another challenge that arose during this session was that none of the elderly were really willing to talk to us/give us a chance to interact with them. This could be because that they were unwilling to share with us/we were afraid based on our stereotypes of elderly that they may be scary/fierce. To tackle this problem, we instead observed and took notes of the actions of the elderly to physically see what could be some problems that they face. We also asked our own grandparents about some of the problems they face.
Through our observations of the elderly and conversations with our grandparents, we managed to find out a recurring problem in their community - they have walking difficulties. Out of many observed elderly, about 60% actually require a walking cane to support their mobility and some were observed limping to their destinations. As can be seen from the first picture, we noticed that these stairs pose as a challenge to elderly who have walking difficulties.
Since this mobility problem was most commonly observed among many elderly, we decided to narrow down to this specific community - elderly with walking difficulties.
Therefore, in order to understand their needs better, we decided to start out with an empathy map.
These were our personal perceptions on the issue when we put ourselves in their shoes. We also gathered all the information from the elderly we managed to talk to and linked to what they actually felt about this problem.
These information leads us to our next phase - Define phase where we come up with a problem statement.
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