TADPOLE
A re-designed sprained wrist device that hides its medical function purposefully to increase users' willingness and foster prevention on worsening symptoms.
PROJECT INTRO
OVERVIEW
Tadpole is a re-designed medical device for sprained wrist due to patients' unwillingness on wearing original ones. Concepts from fashion design and industrial design are combined to handcraft Tadpole in a form of problem solving and aesthetics.
MY ROLE: INDUSTRIAL DESIGN
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Design research, designing, hands-on sewing and trimming, prototyping, CAD modeling, rendering.
DESIGN TOOL
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Solidworks, Keyshot, Sketchbook Pro.
TEAM
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Individual project.
PROJECT DURATION
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Aug 2018 - Oct 2018, 7 weeks
LOCATION
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Brooklyn, NY, USA.
KEY TASK
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To re-design a medical device for sprained wrist injury to reduce patients' unwillingness to work with original ones for improvement and prevention.
DESIGN PRINCIPLE
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Design to improve
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Problem solving
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Increase willingness
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User friendly
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Sustainable
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Aesthetics
PROJECT GOAL
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Apply fashion to improve appearance
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Ability to hide guaranteed medical function
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Breathability for hot and humid environments
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Reduce unnecessary fabric
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Durability for long usage
TARGET GROUP
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Young adults influenced by appearance and comfortableness of sprain wrist device
GUIDING QUESTION
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What are critical to influence users' willingness and how to improve it?
KEY WORD
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Willingness
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Sprained wrist
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Re-design
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Breathability
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Aesthetics
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Appearance to hide original medical functions
RESEARCH
KEY ISSUE
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Without proper treatment sprained wrist could lead to serious conditions.
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Traditional medical devices for sprained wrist are not ideally accepted and used as often as it is supposed to because of patients' unwillingness.
SAMPLE STUDY
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Low fashion
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Stabilize wrist
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Unnecessary cover on hand
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Lack of breathability
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Limit grabbing space
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Light-weighted
INTERVIEW CONCLUSION
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Bad-looking appearance
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Awkwardness on obvious indication that one's injured
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Not breathable enough in summer
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Limitation on hand motion such as grabbing and gaming
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Unnecessary cover area on palm
Most of interviewees experienced worsening sprained wrist by not wearing medical device in time due to reasons listed in the interview conclusion. In order to foster wrist protection and prevention on worsening symptoms, it's essential to elevate people's willingness to accept and work with the device, including improving aesthetics and breathability, removing unnecessary fabric, giving back grabbing space, and hiding medical functions as much as possible.
IDEATION
NOBLE COLORS
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Noble color scheme is potential to hide the medical function since the concept and feelings in it is the opposite of those in existing medical device. So it tends to be hard to think of a medical device when noble color scheme is noticed in the first place.
STEALTH COLORS
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A ninjia covers himself in black when he doesn't intend to be noticed. The same goes to special forces and their tactical suits. Stealth color scheme pushes away attentions and keeps it low profile.
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The diversity and pattern of textiles are what make a product in stealth color scheme different. The details once found by a close look will arouse people's interest in discovering more, the design in existing medical devices of which never achieves.
DESIGN
PROTOTYPE (ROUND ONE)
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Traditional sprained wrist devices look cheap in terms of material, texture, trimming, and color choice. In order to apply aesthetics to hide direct indication on injury, the opposite of "cheap", noble, is potential to flip it over.
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Besides color schemes that include yellow and gold, material reflectiveness and fineness of textures matter. A bit of non-reflective dark colors like dark wood and black contributes to emphasize the gold and yellowness.
However, not everyone, or even only a small population of people wear luxurious outfits often. Most of people dress up in a more casual style that fits more situations compared to noble styles.
PROTOTYPE (ROUND TWO)
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Compared to noble style, stealth style should be more appliable since its demand on matching for specific outfits style is less. The color itself helps attract less attention and is good at hiding.
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Low profile in terms of dark colors, poor light reflectiveness, neat, no characteristics of any elements standing out individually, and unity.
FINAL OUTCOME
Improved aesthetics.
Fabric covers necessary area only and does not interfere grabbing motions.
Breathability.
A series to match with popular shoes made by worldwide companies.
NEXT STEP
WHAT COULD'VE BEEN DONE BETTER
WHAT'RE EXPECTED TO LEARN NEXT
Trimming and other handcrafting work. Although the medical function is guaranteed, there is still a lot that's uncompleted on trimming and finishing Tadpole. The tail looks rough on its edges and it doesn't completely attach to its body while wrapped up since velcro is not enough. The pattern could be more interesting and meaningful.
Different people have different taste on what they think is fashionable. More research on looking into what people think is beautiful and willing to try out because of aesthetics is expected.