India, home to the world's largest % of blind people. Only 10% of the blind population in India knows braille (Blind reading Language) yet all the existing products are in braille failing to cater the community.

Medications being one of the basic necessities for lives, Knowing Braille shouldn't be a barrier from them being independent.

HOPE is first of its kind Inclusive product which enables the Blind to consume Liquid Medicine.

A simple product which aims in enabling Blind & making them independent.
Moreover due to their inability to consume precise medicine, they are exposed to multiple health hazards.

HOPE has a completely new approach, it serves a new experience of measuring liquid medicines. It uses audible & tactile senses for precise measurement, enabling blind to consume medicine precisely and distinguish between the medicines.

HOPE would serve as back support, upsurging scope for betterment for blinds in the Healthcare sector.

India being the home to the world's largest number of blind people. Only 10% of the entire blind population of India knows braille, all the existing products are in braille, failing to cater the community.

This project started with multiple visits and days spent with blind people of different age groups, socioeconomic status, and cultures to understand and empathize with their life and understand " How is it to live in a blind person's life ".

After multiple visits and days spent with blind people, many things became clearer and many daily life problems were observed.

They are always dependant on someone and are being adapted to the situations with the utmost difficulty. Certainly, While consuming medicines, they don't know what medicine they are having and how much they are consuming, makes blind feel even more paralyzed. Health being a very basic necessity of any person, due to extreme difficulties in administering medicines it leads to under-dosing, overdosing, missing out of doses and not completing treatment courses. Moreover, due to their inability to consume precise medicine the problems they face due to overdose are, it would adversely affect the outcome of acute serious medical conditions such as pneumonia and long-term health issues such as diabetes, asthma, hypertension, and epilepsy. Even though there hasn't been any solution to this particular problem yet.

So what could be the solution?

Anything very new may not be that comfortable and acceptable by the blind, so for the six weeks of the project, I tried spending most of the time in different blind schools with variety of blind people to understand them better and trying to absorb their natural way of life and using their everyday small intuitive actions into my ideation process.

This product serves as back support to them, upsurging a scope for betterment at least in the medical sector. Since all the existing products available for measuring liquid medicines works on visual aspect only which is not beneficial for blinds at all. Whereas Hope has a completely new approach and it serves a completely new experience of measuring liquid. It uses audible and tactile senses for precise measurement of liquid medicines which enables the blind to consume medicine precisely and distinguish between medicine bottles as per requirement.

With the blinds finding themselves being covered with lots of challenges in daily life, I am trying to make their conditions a bit convenient by serving them provision to their problems faced while consuming liquid medicines, as this product provides a completely new experience of self administrating liquid medicines.

So what was my inspiration to create something like this?

- I witnessed an old blind woman struggling right in front of me every day in my colony while consuming her basic medicines & I always wanted to design something to make her life better which was the first seed towards this project.

- As an individual " How could I make an impact on this society ?" currently being a product design student I think by working on projects which could upscale the life of the needy communities, me being a product design student nothing could be more satisfying.

So what is the OPERATION / FLOW / INTERACTION of the Product?

- It is a very simple product that could be retrofitted to any liquid medicine bottles as per the need.

- Once the attachment is attached to the medicine bottle, its ready to serve the blind being independent while consuming medicines.

- The user needs to move the handle up until he listens and feels the desired clicks which relate to the amount of medicine filled (1CLICK= 2.5ML).

- Now, the user needs to push the handle back down listening to the clicks again to confirm the quantity filled.

- Now the user can open the cap and consume their precise medicine with no hassles like before.

PROJECT DURATION AND LOCATION-

- The project started in April 2018 in Kurukshetra(India) and finished in May 2018 in Kurukshetra(India), and was awarded & exhibited in Taiwan International Student Design Competition 2019.

RESEARCH ABSTRACT:

- Initial research was started by me trying to live like a blind, I lived days blindfolded myself and trying to empathize with the community.

- Visited various blind schools in different cities, lived with blind families, Individuals and understood the problems faced by the blind of all age groups and socio-economic classes and occupations.

- Research tools like

- Fly on the wall

- Interview guides

- A day in the life of a user

- Empathizing tools

- After intense research and understanding about the user groups and their context of living, synthesizing and segregating data was done.

- Various insights ad opportunities were generated which were then prioritized according to user insights.

- Design brief was generated in which each and every word and the needs were derived from user insights and their understandings.

What makes Hope special?

- First of its kind to cater the blind community

- Enables them to self-administrate their medications

- The problems related to misdosages of medicines in blind will be massively reduced and the health hazards would be minimized.

- This product makes the blind more independent and makes their life experience more hassle-free.