Who: kids between 8-12 years and their families
What: A STUDENT SERVICE DESIGN CHALLENGE by Philips Design
When: Jan-jun 2020
Where: Madrid, Spain
Why: improve heart health for an UNDERSERVED group in europe
How: Using the double diamond approach with a team of 5 students

This project was selected to be displayed at the Dutch Design Festival, see the virtual exhibition here.

The Problem – Improve Heart Health

The scope of the challenge was ‘How can we improve the heart health of people in Europe that are ‘invisible’, neglected, underserved, forgotten or overlooked?’ 

The challenge is initiated by Philips Experience Design, and co-organized with SERVICE DESIGN DAYS, in collaboration with IBM and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, to involve young designers in designing people-centered and future-oriented services to improve people’s health, well-being and welfare.

The Users – Children between 8-12 years

How to engage overweight children to build healthier habits and prevent cardiovascular disease

After our initial research we decided to focus our challenge on children between 8-12 years old, because

  • This age group has had the biggest increase in obesity over the last 10 years
  • Children who are overweight at this age are 5 to 10 times more likely to be overweight at 35.
  • Early prevention is key, but with children below 8 years old having less autonomy, the product would change more. Leading us to target older children.
  • From 12 years and up children go into puberty and their psychology is more similar to an adult.

Photos from the Process

The Result

The work resulted in a service called Yummeals – a digital content platform delivering a healthy-meals cooking adventure to engage parents and kids while learning healthy habits. The aim is to deliver a fun experience for kids, convenience for parents and healthy habits adoption for all.

Our team made it to the final of the challenge, meaning we were selected to exhibit our project at the Dutch Design Week. Due to the pandemic, the exhibition was made virtual and you can still find it online. It is an interactive exhibition walking you through our work, go to the virtual exhibition.

“I was captivated by their skills, their eagerness to apply human centered design and their motivation to bring new value to underrepresented social groups. I am proud of the resilience, motivation, reliability and openness the team has shown during these unprecedented times.”

Assessment coach, Markus Meissner, IBM Studios Berlin, Germany

My Role

Our team divided responsibilities to make sure we all got to do a little something of everything. Apart from ideation and desk research work as a team, my main responsibilities included preparing and doing user interviews and questionnaires. Sketching out ideas for communication to mentors and documenting our ideas. Animation and video editing for the deliverables.