End-to-end service design for Canada Post; recognized internationally
With the rise of digital alternatives, revenue from letter delivery has been on the decline for the past 17 years, and in parcel delivery, Canada Post been losing market share to faster, cheaper competitors such as FedEx or UPS. Utilizing their reach to approximately 17 million addresses across the country (Canada Post, 2021), Carriers that Care would introduce a new stream of revenue to the business.
Thus, Carriers that Care is a proposal for a service that leverages the existing Canada Post network to deliver in-person check-ins to seniors living alone. Designed to pilot in high-trust rural neighbourhoods in Canada, with plans to scale services to wider areas.
Academic Project for IAT 438: Experience Design; Collaborators: Jasper Precilla, Samaila Newaz, Tristan Turisno, Hugo Duran
MY CONTRIBUTIONS: CONCEPTUALIZING THE SERVICE
1. Postal workers have been advocating for this!
The 'Delivering Community Power' initiative, created by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), are a set of proposals inspired by a sense of need for Canada Post to innovate - one of which include a proposal for a senior check-in service, which their earliest version dates back to 2016.
2. Other countries have already incorporated this into their postal companies!
Veiller Sur Mes Parents - France
Monique and Aurore, an elderly French woman and a France Post postal worker, are just two of many people who already are part of a senior check-in program in France. Read about them here.
Mimamori Home-visit Service - Japan
Japan is another country where citizens are able to sign up for senior check-in services via their national postal service. In 2020, a study was released stating that recipients of such services have been proven to have improved the mental health of their users.
MY CONTRIBUTIONS: DOING RESEARCH
Feedback above all - Prototype and user test
Because we had example models to base our service off of, my team was able to create a prototype quickly and bring it to testing fairly quickly, which I felt was crucial for this project, which came with a lot of uncertainties.
In the span of a week, our team created a mock landing page and got potential users to ‘sign up’ for the service.
7 participants who live away from their parents
Age range: 20 - 50
30-40 minutes
How do we keep the integrity of the service?
This project came with a lot of confusion and concern, primarily around the area of trust and concern around seniors being checked-in on. Below are a few of the concerns that were voiced during user testing:
MY CONTRIBUTIONS: SYNTHESIZING RESEARCH, PUSHING PROJECT FORWARDS
Addressing user concerns - The importance of framing
Secondary research sourced from the National Institute of Ageing (NIA) - particularly, their "Ageing in the Right Place" report, defines four fundamental pillars that are essential in enabling older adults to age in the most appropriate setting where their personal preferences, circumstances, and care needs are met.
Following user interviews, we conducted further research into "aging at home", hoping to find an area that postal workers could comfortably intervene in.
This framework helped my team and I scope down our service focus to the fourth pillar, improving social connections to reduce loneliness and social isolation. I felt that this focus would be essential in keeping the trust of Carriers that Care, as I feel that postal workers would not have the capacity to reasonably support the other three pillars without fundamental changes to their jobs.
THE FINAL PRODUCT
How does a “senior check-in” work?
1. Canadians who live away from their senior family members can sign their loved ones up for Carriers that Care.
2. Deliverymen of Canada Post, who already have the widest delivery route reach out of any delivery service in Canada, will make routine visits to senior members who have been registered.
3. Following each visit, pre-designed reports describing each check-in will be filled out by the deliverymen and sent to families of the seniors.
REFLECTION
With a deadline of 5 weeks, this project was truly a hustle. Yet, because I was surrounded by fellow designers who had such diverse skill sets, I really really enjoyed getting to immerse myself in design research and synthesis - a whole service design project in this time scope was only possible because we truly became masters of ‘divide and conquer’. I truly believe design cannot be created in a silo, so getting to nurture a project from end to end with fellow empathetic, design-minded peers is an experience I dearly miss.
Also, if this means anything to you - the teaching team (prof. Russell Taylor!!) for this course included this project in their course briefs in the semesters following mine. That’s pretty cool!