
In short
When an individual becomes dependent, their relatives become medical assistants in their own right. Forgetting about themselves in the process. We’ve thought about innovative products or services to identify, accompany and support these carers, while involving the many home help service providers in the process.
- 2 experiments on 4 prototypes

Challenges
Family carers play a major role in our health care system. Knowing how to identify, accompany and support them is therefore a public service mission that the Val-de-Marne department has chosen to carry out... but not in the traditional way. The Directorate for Autonomy of the 94th district of France called on User Studio to come up with concepts for innovative products or services that would make it possible to detect the district's carers, to support them throughout the ups and downs of life, and to relieve them in case of exhaustion.

Steps
- 1Immersion with auxiliary staff
- 2Summary of lessons learned
- 3Sketches of initial ideas
- 4Ideation workshop
- 5Concept design
- 6Situational user testing
- 7Prioritising a service
- 8Further development of concepts
Our involvment
Designing a service that fits in with everyone's habits is complex, especially in our busy and demanding daily lives where the medical and the personal are intertwined. We started with a long immersion to understand the household rituals, a great source of inspiration for imagining our future concepts. Four service ideas were developed, each of which responds to different aspects of the experience: recognising your status as a carer, supporting the carer, re-establishing the link between all the stakeholders concerned, encouraging the carer to take time for him or herself...