A Delightful Experience for Aged Care Residents through Technology

Challenge

Bolton Clarke is a not-for-profit provider of independent living services through at-home care, retirement living and residential aged care. They have invested in building an in-house capability providing digital services to their clients. The challenge was to scan the market for a potential app solution that would allow Bolton Clarke’s residents go about their daily lives and interact with the variety of services Bolton Clarke offers through the use of technology, as well as validating the desirability of features with residents through prototyping and testing. ​

Approach

Understand the needs and wants of Bolton Clarke residents to develop a delightful experience for a potential Bolton Clarke app​.

The Strategy Group undertook a customer-driven approach to understand what features Bolton Clarke’s residents would utilise in a potential app, through prototyping and testing, in order to increase the certainty of a successful rollout. Our approach consisted of the following steps:​

• Evaluate existing start-ups, apps and platforms that address problems within the aged care sector​
• Assess the current experience of how customers go about their daily lives and interact with the variety of services Bolton Clarke offers​
• Map the Bolton Clarke App customer journey utilising the deep insights uncovered from the research to help us identify the key focus areas and touch points in the journey​
• Utilise high-fidelity prototypes that represent selected features prioritised in the journey maps​
• Design experiments with testable hypotheses​
• Conduct a series of experiments, using the prototypes developed, with a select group of Bolton Clarke residents to validate/invalidate selected features​
• Document residents’ actions and feedback from the experiments​
• Evaluate the findings from the experiments to determine the key features that should be implemented first for a Bolton Clarke App with a good chance of uptake and usability

Design-thinking tools and frameworks were utilised to support each step of the process to identify, evaluate and test a solution for the Bolton Clarke App.

Outcomes

An app solution was identified with the desirability of features validated through prototyping and testing. A trial was then conducted for a 6-month period at one of Bolton Clarke’s retirement village to assess the app’s feasibility and viability for full-scale rollout. ​

The outcomes of the project included the following:​

• Best-fit app solution selected​
• User experience and customer journey maps developed that clearly define the features and experience for residents and staff interacting with the app​
• Process for testing & learning technological solutions with Bolton Clarke’s client base established ​
• Desirability of features validated for the Bolton Clarke app​
• 6-month trial commenced at a Bolton Clarke retirement village to further validate the app’s feasibility and viability for long-term success​