Aroma-Relaxer
One of the projects that helped me understand coding, as well as user experience design, was developing a product for recent Spinal cord injury sufferers.
Product overview:
The Aroma-Relaxer is a portable aromatherapy device designed for recent spinal cord injury sufferers who are suffering from increased anxiety due to their recent injury. The purpose of the device is to provide quick and effective relaxation treatment to help combat anxiety.
Presentation poster
The Brief
The project brief was to design an interactive assistive device that would enhance the daily life experiences of people with spinal injuries in Australia. The product had to fit into a product ecosystem (or family of connected products) that serve the needs of a common user group, and a working prototype had to be created using Arduino.
Research + Idea development
After completing extensive user research, I was struggling to think of what type of product would fit as an 'interactive assistive device to enhance the daily life of SCI sufferers'. Through my research, I had discovered that the majority of new SCI sufferers reported extremely high levels of stress and anxiety while performing every day tasks that they would be able to complete on their own before their injury. Things such as hanging out the washing, or cooking and cleaning, became overwhelming, and would remain so until they had completed their adjustment stage and had comprehended their change in lifestyle. This discovery then became the foundational criteria for my product - a portable relaxation device that was simple, easy to use, and provided effective treatment, enter The Aroma-Relaxer.
One impressive feature about the product is it was designed to be injection moulded out of polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA), which is a biodegradable plastic which closely resembles high density poly ethylene (HDPE). Due to this, I altered the shape and design of the product to be disassembled and re-used as a pot plant, where it would slowly degrade over time.
