*Project Introduction
The damda is the service to help patients who face themselves’ death and their family members communicate. From the moment patients start struggling against their disease, patients and their family members become under different stress and anxiety. For those people, this project is designed to help patients record their lives actively and all family members share the record and understand each other. They can spend the rest of their days meaningfully.

*Consist
The damda consists of tool-kit patients use and smart phone application patients’ family use. Tool-kit covers reply printer, print paper, and sheet-shaped note scanner.

* Project background
A friend’s mother of mine was a terminal cancer patient. At that time she was under a lot of pressure and depressed, so she was frequently irritable and regretful about those reactions. To help my friend treat her mother consistently, this project is designed.

*Problem summary
1. Mental anguish of cancer patients
Patients are sorry for others’ caring and concern about burden their family. However, at the same time, they want their family to offer a lot of attention and protection to them. Also, in the process that patients let their family know information about heath, conflict might happen.

2. Stress of patients’ family
Patients’ family cannot control their emotion as their mental and physical stress increases. When it comes to patients’ family far from patients, they feel a sense of guilty because they cannot take care of their patients.

3. The difference of device accessibility
It means the difference of using device, such as the phone, analogue device of parent’ generation and the smart phone, device of offspring’ one. Due to this difference, they cannot often communicate.

* Project challenge
In 2035, it estimated that 24 million people will be taken cancer around the world. At first, this project started in situation about a friend and his mother suffered from cancer. As time goes by, every team member thinks their parents and proceeds with it. The biggest consideration was to help people spend the rest of their life warmly.

We try to be sympathetic to the feelings of patients and their family beyond the understanding.
And we also considerate patients and their family’s situation they tell us. Instead of observing users’ situation, we interviewed them comfort to understand their’. During interviews, team members felt sorry for them.

Most of all, owing to heavy theme of this project, team members’ morale used to decrease.
While proceeding it, we have the time to check our orientation to search for positive solutions whenever we were affected agony and fear negatively.

There was a stage to verify whether the result of this project affects positive effect to patients and their family or not. Before producing a prototype, it was researched that patients and their family’ needs about communication via diary. After using the family exchange diary, we found patients and their family to want to record it consistently. There were some feedbacks that they would proceed exchanging their notes. By experiencing it, we can obtain results and apply for this project.

*Field research
Increase understanding about hospital atmosphere and observe what people feel in hospital. There was filled with people tired, vigorless, and anxious.

*In-depth Interview
Depth interviews proceed by contacting cancer patients, their family, doctors, nurses, caregivers. The relation among medical team, patients, and their family was more complex than expected. Especially, interviewing patients was very complicated. Mainly interviewing patients’ emotional difficulties and each part’s problems, we thought caring of patients as to complicated relationship with patients. (Refer to PDF 7 page)

*Insight and Design challenge
Previously progressed research was analyzed and resulted in the insight (key finding). Massive data from research were defined and found challenge. There were three challenges; First, it is necessary to motivate terminal cancer patients to keep the rest their lives on their own. Second, it should be free that patients and their family share their mind easily and comfortably. Last, communication media should be provided respectively. In other words, patients and their family’ generational major media need to be give them their comfort media.

*Development (Ideation+Design concept)
For the happiness of patients and their family, the service to help them express their feelings was needed in daily life. Therefore, ideation to solve key problem (Refer to PDF 8~10 page) was processed and main idea was selected considered concreteness, reality, and orientation of service. The concept of service plays a role as an emotional expression channel that recording their daily lives like an exchange diary and using it as a communication tool.

*Experience prototyping
To verify the orientation of service concept, cancer patients and their family who belong to communities to overcome cancer together participated in experience prototyping programs. The concept such as an exchange diary, note-taking form became an opportunity to find the meaning for patients and their family (Refer to PDF 15 page).

*Prototype
The-damda tool-kit consists of easy-to-use tools because the old accounts for cancer patients. There are two categories; for patients, sheets and mini printer are provided and for their family, smart phone application does. With soft and warm emotion, this service was realized to show mind and daily lives of precious people

Patients having their death ahead and their family should help each other with different anguish and pain. Our aim is to help people overcome their hard times by using the-damda service with emotional channel.

* Humanity value
The first private value of the-damda is to help cancer patients acquire psychological stability, feel a sense of belonging, and organize the rest of their lives by recording their lives.

*Social value
Patients’ note written by their family together can be published to a book via web site. Also, if patients and their family agree, the book would be donated. This book can be a social effect to NGO, hospitals, communities and so on as a second value of service.

*Global value
Finally, a third value is to raise the attention about early cancer patients and assist them with medical aid finance through long-period the-damda service operation, it can be possible to rebuild mentally and physically healthy society.

The system has three stages; before use, during use, after use. Each stage has main features. These are shown below.

Step 1. Start using service
1. Introducing the service in hospital (Off-line)
Keeping brochures to let cancer patients know the service, clients in hospitals access the service on their own. A coordinator (or a consultant) introduces the service to patients.

2. Connecting communities about disease with the service (On-line)
Communities helping cancer patients to overcome their disease or blogs having information related to heath problems recruit people, get feedback, and advertise by using users’ comments.

3. Campaign of national level (On, Off-line)
Government ministries such as the ministry of health and welfare introduce and publicize the service.

Step 2. Using the service
1. Application via on-line
The service should be provided to be possible to join and rent on website and the phone.

2. Using the service
At the next day of a settlement day, check clients’ service accessibility and guide service or managing situations.

Step3. Consumer reviews about the service (the stage of circulation about the service)
Clients limited to agree with sharing their used-experience can get updated-brochures (Off-line).
By making and activating The damda communities, users can give other patients and their family hope (On-line).

*Pre-test
To confirm needs about communication among family members, we recruit groups which consist of parents and their offspring to become one team and check the meaning the service has.

The first group consists of a (70-year-old) mother who was diagnosed as a terminal cancer and her (43-year-old) daughter. The second group consists of a 956-year-old) mother who was completely recovered and her (27-year-old) daughter. The last group consists of a (53-year-old) healthy mother and her (30-year-old) daughter.

Each group got a diary note, pens, a package how to take notes.
During a week, three groups had to write something to tell each other every day. And they should picture that notes and transmit those image via each others’ smart phone. After a week, we interviewed and received each note.

The first group said that they could understand each others’ daily life, make a regular habit to have meal and exercise, and think they have to live their lives zealously to give their family hope. Unlike other groups, this group’s patient was full of energy remarkably. However, since the patient is the oldest one, it was difficult for her to exchange pictures via her smart phone. This group wanted to share their lives more compared to other groups.

The second group’s daughter said that brief memos was easy to write and she could express her thought sincerely. The second group’s patient said that she wanted to keep the notes and rewrote those before returning. Also she wanted to exchange her diary with her daughter after this experience. It means needs for the service is a lot.

The third group’s participants had difference between daughter and her mother. Busy daughter did not the notes regularly, but her mother did. In the mother’s case, she thought that without her daughter’s feedback, keeping writing notes would not be continued. So, family who has patients would need to use this service more.

By testing and interviewing three groups, it is thought that patients and their family need their daily records and sharing those. On condition that parent generation pass away first, the difference of a major media for communication causes difficulty. And the device for two generations did not exist. Consequentially, we designed devices for parent generation and a smart phone application service for offspring generation, respectively.