As part of my Physical and Digital Spaces class and in collaboration with FJORD Madrid, my team and I designed the mobility of the aging population with the challenged question, "How might we help the elderly population move around their environment in a healthy, safe, and confident way?". 

To move forward from this, we conducted extensive research on the target audience, elderly people in Madrid who wants to have the confidence and freedom in moving around where physical spaces are available. We interviewed 15 people, 5 of which are phone interviews with the team's respective grandparent. Additionally, we conducted a few online surveys to help create a profile of the elderly person (we named him "Ricardo"). Afterwards, we drew out a journey map and identified the pain points of the target audience. 

From the findings and insights we've gathered, we proposed a solution: Smart Shoes. 

We chose shoes as our product because we want to use a device which is always present and impossible to miss. By choosing a shoe we can assure that the user will never forget to wear it and therefore their information will always be recorded. We want to go into the elderly life in the most seamless way possible and we believe that using the shoe will be the perfect way to do so. 

To prototype our product, we first sketch the design on how we want our product to look like as well as the features it will have. Then, we used Tinkercad to render a 3D model of it and 3D Slicer to export the design and have it printed through a 3D printer with the help of the team from MakeSpace Madrid. 

Finally, we presented our findings and results to the team of FJORD Madrid. Taking into account all the features our product has, this is how we think the Smart Shoe will change elderly people’s lives giving them peace of mind wherever they go. We strongly believe that through Smart Shoes, we will be able to create an environment where we will have a better, healthier, safer, more independent space in our golden years.