Assisted Living Facility Study
This project was completed over the course of a ten-week class in service design with the help of three teammates. I took this course through Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) as part of my MFA degree I'm earning in Interactive Design. The four core parts of the project were a customer journey map, an ecosystem map, a storyboard, and a service blueprint. Our theoretical client was an assisted living facility wondering how they could increase interest in their offering.
To begin, we completed secondary research, talked with relatives, and identified the main stakeholders. The three main points that stood out to us from our research are that elderly people want to age at home, they are not planning ahead to make this happen, and this causes tension between children and their parents as they age.
During the process of customer journey mapping as a team, two moments of truth surfaced. The first is when our persona, Julie, realizes she should look into what options she has to help with caring for her mom Elaine, and the second is deciding on their favorite facility after researching their options.
Next, we created an ecosystem map. This exercise helped us consider the larger environment our stakeholders operate in as we moved forward with the project.
One of the main things we noticed while analyzing this artifact was the overwhelming number of resource exchanges happening between Julie, Elaine, and the other actors, contributing to their stress. We then used the ecosystem map to explore how we could minimize the amount of resource exchanges and make the process easier for Julie and Elaine by taking advantage of IT resources.
The next step was to create a storyboard of what the ideal customer experience could look like. The team began by brainstorming different ways we could help Julie and Elaine through the process of choosing an assisted living facility. As we brainstormed, two ideas began to emerge. One was to have a concierge-like experience where an employee would be there for them to walk them through the process. The other was to host an event for potential residents and their families where they can meet current residents and experience what life is like there. Our final storyboard incorporated both, depicting a wow moment for Julie where she feels supported in blue and a wow moment for Elaine where she can picture herself living there in red.
Our final component for this project was a service blueprint. This blueprint was co-created with the class, simulating the experience of running a workshop with stakeholders to see what it would take to make our proposed event happen. Collaborating with stakeholders in workshop settings like this can help create buy-in to get projects done, visualize departmental ownership over parts of the process, encourage understanding between parties, and increase the likelihood that the eventual solution will be a lasting one.
