Role
Product designer
Tools
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe After Effects
What if medical staff is busy taking care of patients who need urgent help in the natural disaster site, when you got fractured?
The recent heartbreaking earthquake that occurred in Taiwan arose our attention in natural disaster design. Earthquake is a natural disaster that frequently happens in Circum-pacific seismic belt, Mediterranean seismic zone and Mid-ocean ridge seismic zone. Countries located in those areas face over 5 millions earthquakes in total every year. On the bright side, only a few will cause severe damage but sadly that is enough to destroy lots of families and houses in the world. Taiwan, a small Island, is located in Eastern Asia and off the East-southern coast of Japan. After the 2016 southern Taiwan earthquake, which was the deadliest one in Taiwan since the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake. We immediately look for what we can do from a design perspective.
We want to design a product that helps medical staff in the site to maximize their resources in critical situations.
Brainstorm
At this stage, we mapped out all the circumstances that would occur on site. Meanwhile, look into who would be involved and what specific assistance would medical staff offer in the standard rescue process on the site.
Research
Research has shown that there is up to 50% of injuries sustained during earthquakes are bone fractures. It turns to be a serious issue since there is no sufficient medical staff to take care of everyone on the site. Based on that result, we design a temporary holder for the injured to help themselves immediately. With a quick self-diagnose, people are able to find out where they got fractured and use BoneAid to keep their injured bones stable.
Concept
An unique folding crease incorporated into the design allows users to easily fold it into the shape that fits the most common injured part. It is settled with easily secured straps and buttons to hold it in place. Made from polypropylene due to its lightweight nature and lower price point. It can be simply manufactured at a cheap cost. Featuring written and illustrated instructions for its assortment of folding methods, it is simple enough for a non-professional to operate.
Sketch
From our own experiences and research, we understand how crucial it is to ship the most essentials in the least container. To make sure our product is able to be shipped easily during the rescue time, we came up with the concept of folding PP boards to keep the holder flat when shipping. According to our research, the elbow, ankle and legs are the easiest parts to get fractured in natural disaster. BoneAid fits three positions in one by providing simple folding guidance for users to follow.
Prototype
We picked PP board after various tryouts for three reasons, it can be folded easily into its desired shapes, it is safe to use in medical applications, it is used widely for its cheap and deposit attributes. With our three-birds-one-stone approach, the Bone Aid is perfect for areas with little to no access to medical expertise and equipment.
The calculation has showcased that with the same space it might hold as many as 18,000 units due to BoneAid’s flat and foldable design. This largely enhanced the efficiency and quality of medical treatment in natural disaster situations.
Awards
BoneAid won Gold and Curator's choice in IDEA award. This unforgettable award was just a start, the spirit of making the world a better place had grown in my mind which I never gave up on. This caused me to spend more time on social issues engagement and led me to contribute to the culture equity as a Product Designer in my recent project, Art For All.
Chia Ling Chen
UX Design・UI Design・Product Designer
Open to relocate.
Thank you for your time and attention.
If you are interested in discussing further about my work, please get in touch with me at chialing83@gmail.com
If you are interested in discussing further about my work, please get in touch with me at chialing83@gmail.com
