Blue Cross Blue Shield
Bee Busy is a service design project that aims to improve the mental and physical health of college students, while matching their busy schedule. This was my final project for an Industrial Design Studio at Wentworth. Our class worked with the Blue Cross Blue Shield design thinking team and we focused on utilizing the design thinking process to solve problems within healthcare. This project focuses on the theme “Food is Medicine”. My team identified that college students are sacrificing their mental and physical health to keep up with their busy schedules.
Skills
Service Design, Design Thinking, User Research, Ideating, Prototyping, Persona Development
My Role
I conducted interviews, created frameworks, and went through several rounds of ideation with my team to produce our final product. As a team, we presented our final deliverables to a BCBS team.
Empathize
I interviewed students on several different college campuses in Boston to better understand what challenges they were facing, specifically surrounding food.
I learned that students have a lot to juggle and often they don't prioritize maintaining a healthy diet. They may eat little to no food, or make unhealthy choices just to get fill the gap. Students with packed schedules have little time to cook meals or wait in line for food to be prepared at the dining hall. They have to consider class schedules and dining hall hours.
Synthesize
Once my team reviewed our interviews, we created a persona with a backstory, likes/dislikes, daily schedule, and values based on the students we had spoke with. Our subject, Liz, was a 20 year old rugby player who was sacrificing her mental and physical health due to time restrictions. The limited dining hall hours and lack of healthy options also played a role in her unhealthy choices.
So we asked ourselves:
How might we enhance the mental and physical health of young people with fast-paced lives through convenient and healthy choices?
Ideate
After several rounds of ideating, we created Bee Busy (version 1). Bee Busy is a weekly package that keeps students organized with personalized reminders, helps them de-stress with games, and provides prepared food for convenient healthy meals. This product could be delivered to students living on or off campuses and has an app that allows you to track the package's progress.
Prototype and Test
We prototyped the Bee Busy delivery package with examples of possible foods and items that you might find in it. This was shown to students and we recieved feedback on the idea. I also did further research on the logistics of mailing packages to dorms.
Repeat
Through surveys and interviews we found that delivery could potentially be an issue. Students on campus typically have to wait several hours or days for their packages to be processed by the school mail room. So we went back through the ideate/prototype/test cycle to address this problem.
Final Deliverables
From this further research, we created "The Hive". This is a refrigerated locker system that stores prepared food at campus centers or other popular locations, and would allow customers to pick up their meals at their convenience. Through the app “Bee Busy” our consumers can order meals from local businesses to be delivered. Users can also organize their daily schedules on this app. We’re promoting the use of schedules for eating as well as regular daily tasks.
