QUALITY IMPROVEMENT
Let Older Adults Guide You By Sara Wildberger
products and services. But these need more than good ideas and design to fl ourish. The executive chief gerontologist of Or-
W
ange, Calif.-based startup GrandPad, Dr. Kerry Burnight, holds 20 years as a university professor and is the cofounder and director of the nation’s fi rst Elder Abuse Forensic Center. She was attracted to GrandPad as a solu-
tion to social isolation. The lack of human connection is a major factor leaving older people vulnerable to abuse and poorer qual- ity of life, she said. While GrandPad’s tablet for seniors is designed to make phone calls and internet use easier, the mission of com- batting isolation and encouraging contact is at the heart of the company. Dr. Burnight shares lessons the GrandPad
team has gleaned that could be useful to other innovators in senior products and services.
Learn and Listen from Older Adults “Let older adults guide you every step of the way,” Burnight said. The company has a team of Grand Advisors, who generate ideas and test innovation. Currently, the oldest paid advisor is 104. Advisors are employees; they come to the offi ce or the team goes to them, depending on mobility.
Be ‘Immediately Delightful’ GrandPad works on a 90/90 principle: A 90 year old must be delighted in 90 seconds with every product. It starts with the fi rst customer experience, with packaging de- signed so a 90-plus customer can open it with one fi nger. GrandPad’s fl agship prod- uct turns on automatically on opening. It comes preloaded with personal preferences, including contacts, photos, and content.
ith the increasing aging popu- lation, innovators and startups are drawn to creating new
Be Simple This design principle is good practice whatever an audience’s age. The simplest solution for customers included designing and using 3-D printing in-house to manu- facture a wireless charging cradle, so users don’t have to crawl around to fi nd an outlet or drag trip-hazard wires around the room.
Avoid the POF That’s the “point of frustration,” and as Burnight said, “to make something frustra- tion-free is the hardest thing to do. It’s not just a matter of “dumbing down,” she points out—in fact, the opposite is true. A given point of frustration might take thousands of engineering hours to address. Security, for instance, can be a pain point on several fronts, both due to legitimate concern about data security and due to the many hoops to jump through with passwords and codes.
Connect to Great Content The Grand Advisors also help determine which content to off er in the preloads as well as developing new content. Partnerships made it possible. GrandPad partnered with a music provider that enabled access to 30 million songs and an easy interface to fi nd them, to avoid cumbersome download- ing, individual charges, and disappearing favorites. The Advisors also guide game selections—for themselves and those they like to play with friends and grandchildren. When you pull up a contact for a call, it lets you know the time and weather in the contact’s city—information Advisors said would make calls and conversations easier.
Story Equals Service Customer service is not only easily and quickly available, it’s in languages and
46 SENIOR LIVING EXECUTIVE JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
Change Agent Profi le
Kerry Burnight Chief Gerontologist of Orange, Calif.-based startup GrandPad
terminologies that best communicate with people in each geographic market. Off er customer service and software in Chinese, for instance, or Spanish if those are key target populations. Service is set up to make the time to establish and maintain relationships. Meetings start with sharing customer stories, and creative solutions are celebrated. Welcome whole families to the service and sharing process.
Physical Accessibility Having a gerontology expert on board lets you hurdle one of the obstacles common to development of products for seniors— assumptions and misunderstanding of phys- ical issues. For instance, a highly sensitive touchpad aids older adults who may have less moisture in the skin of their fi ngertips or have tremors from physical conditions. Accessibility features around hearing and visual impairments are tested with the Ad- visors. Video call functionality ensures the picture is large enough to read lips and a feature for texting within a video call can clarify and highlight certain words.
Solve Something Real “Solutionism” can be a sticking point in startups and tech; does the problem your product is designed to solve exist?
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