Riley - MR Assistant for Elderly People
A Combination of New Technology and Considerations for Elderly People
Year: 2024 Spring
Type: Team Project
About Project
In this project, we focused on solving social issues using new technologies. We analyzed and studied over 200 initial ideas to find the main problem. After identifying it, we explored how users would experience the new technology and designed a solution to effectively address the issue.
The Problem
Studies have shown that about
40%
of people above 65 years old suffer from memory loss
And Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) is affecting about
16%
of people above 70 years old
The reasons for this problem mainly are:
Lack of mental engagement
Lack of variaty in physical environment
Lack of socially stimulating activities
Lack of Mental Engagement
Many elderly have distant children, making family contact hard. Limited local connections due to deceased friends and a few younger peers can lead to memory issues over time.
Lack of Variety in Physical Environment
Elderly people often face health problems that make it difficult to move or go upstairs. Their wish to visit familiar places is restricted, causing them to stay home most of the time. This isolation can harm their thinking abilities and lead to depression and serious health issues.
Lack of socially stimulating activities
Elderly people with health problems often have limited daily activities and face repetitive routines because of low energy. Their days focus on cooking, taking medication, cleaning, exercising, and cooking again. This simple but repetitive routine takes up a lot of time and may raise the risk of mental decline.
Analyzing the Problem
Will elderly people benefit from:
More communication and personal care?
Seeing different places and possibly experiencing some of them?
A more colorful routine made for their health?
What are we looking for from new technologies?
Users can virtually experience different spaces and activities
Users can see
Users can engage in personalized conversations
Users can get daily companion
Conceptual Model of Problems Elderly People Face
Conceptual Model of Utilizing New Technologies
Solution
With Spatial Computing Technology and Conversational Agent Technology, we designed — Riley, an MR Assistant to help elderly people avoid cognitive decline.
How Riley Works
Riley is a powerful voice assistant that understands users' needs, even when they struggle to express themselves clearly due to cognitive decline.
Using advanced NLP and NLA technology, Riley enables daily communication and can simulate immersive environments for users who can't physically travel.
By utilizing map data and spatial computing, Riley ensures users can explore safely from their homes, scanning the space to prevent accidents.
Use Case
Riley can help elderly people in many common problems elderly people face.
“The father wanted his daughter to visit him and take him on a trip, but she was too busy. His knee pain made going out hard, but he still wanted to explore new places. With Riley’s help, he could enjoy a virtual trip. Riley made it easy for him to learn and offered virtual therapy and communication options. By using Riley, the father could stay sharp mentally and enjoy a more vibrant and caring life.”
Design Details
We want to establish an easy and trustworthy onboarding process so that our users don’t get confused.
The onboarding process is based on voice input, replying on conversational agent. Riley will guide users through the onboarding process, offering options like voice level, accents, brightness and visual focus. Users can customize the settings by just telling Riley which option they want or describe their preferred setting.
Visual Focus Setting
First, Riley will guide users to adjust visual focus by offering 2 options with different distances. Users can adjust the setting by telling Riley which one they think is clearer. This helps users with difficulties in hand movements to effectively adjust visual focus.
Customize Accents and Tones
Virtual Trip
After the onboarding process, Riley is ready to provide services users need. It can take users on a virtual trip, in which users can engage in an immersive world and safely experience the world without being interupted with real life obstacles, such as furniture.
Riley offers a lot of options of customization, from accents to tones and brightness. Users can communicate with Riley with their need for customization, and Riley will adjust the settings to make users feel natural with it as well as the surroundings.
