The UX of Death: SeedGoodbye
- Irene (Shiyin Zheng)
- Dec 12, 2018
- 4 min read
The UX of Death
Team
Cheuk Him Tam (Jordy)
Binghuai Chen
Yirui Fu (Floria)
Irene (me)
Background
Based on our previous literature review on the End-Of-Life period and decision making process, we found several pairs of conflicts among patients, clinicians and family. This time we focus on the conflicts between the patient and the family. We analysed how the conflicts emerge.
In the picture, the patient is called Megan and she is in coma. Before that, she signed a form saying that she would refuse treatment if she remains unconscious. However, her husband, named David, is struggling about letting her go. He knew that even he sticks to keep her alive, his wife, Megan, would never be back to her normal life again. But he still has a regret. He cannot let her go so easily. He cannot even imagine his life without her and also, he never has a chance to say goodbye to his lover.
This is just one simple case. We found there are conflicts between the family and the patient. The patient has lived enough and he paid more attention to his quality of the end life. But the family would think that completing life is more important. They could not understand patient’s status and also they would be thinking about their own regret. They just don't want to let it go.
The conflicts exist between patients and family members towards the question of going to die or living with pain. This is partly because of the lack of communication. We could not solve the problem, but we could make a bridge to boost communication. But how?
Design Concept:
Prepare what patients want to say to their family members in advance.
Express patient's attitudes about the life and will to die to family members.
Making farewell to family members and say a real goodbye.
We involved the concept into a round-shaped device, which would be held in the patient's hand. The usage would be like the following:
The patient, Megan, accompanied by a nurse, is filling out the form to make her “living will”. She is required to record her reason of decision and her final words to her loved ones. The recordings are transferred to our device and stored into it.
Megan is unconscious, lying on the bed. The device is in her hand. Her daughter is beside her, holding her hand. The device begins to talk to her daughter through bones conduction, using Megan’s previous recording. At the time Megan’s daughter is listening, a green branch is appearing on Megan’s waist gradually. Megan began to understand her mother more... Finally, they agreed on Megan’s decision.
One of the friends of Megan could not make it to hospital before Megan’s death. Megan’s husband brought the device to her friend. Her friend put the device onto her heart. She is feeling Megan and hearing her words through the device.
After each of the Megan’s words are being heard, all the branches from the device is turning green (one branch for one person). The device can finally be buried under the ground and be degraded. It is time to say goodbye and let it go.
Function:
Recording & Playing by bone conduction
Record what the patient wants to say to their loved ones and the reasons of his decisions.
Play the recordings when the patient can’t communicate with the family. The family could listen and understand the patient’s feelings and thoughts better, accepting it more peacefully and facing death in a more prepared way.
Heart Beat Sensor
The family members hold the product and through touching, the device would sense it, playing recordings through bone conduction and giving the patients’ heartbeats and temperature at the same time. The family members would feel like talking to the real person.
Light Beam Projection
When each of the loved ones hear a message, a branch would be projected from a seed onto the waist of the patient. When all the recordings were heard, the complete trees appeared, symbolising completion of life.
When all the recording information has been heard, the light will go out, indicating that the patient’s wish is completed and it is time to say goodbye.
Biodegradable
After the device is being buried underground, it could be degraded after years and finally disappear.
Seedgoodbye, for a better communication, to settle down regret and to say a good bye.
Appendix:
Audition made by me for role-play, voice by Constance
Reflection
The physical object can keep the patient's will, so that the clinicians and the family could not ignore his will anymore, though we later realised that the family could not change your will if you have signed a legal file. But one thing we were missing was that if putting in hand was good enough or not. We did not think of the situation when the patient was getting some problems after surgery and he could not hold things anymore. Also, for the object itself, we were kind of going too far for the functions. We were just adding things to it, apart from the main function of recording, but the truth is it cannot achieve so much together. In that case, why don't we just let it focus on the emotional part and do a minus design?
Plus, the object would eventually be put under the ground and be degraded. It could be put together with ash, and it could be started from the beginning to make a full circle.
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