UPLIFT
UPLIFT
Uplift is a decorative bandage that uses reusable and flexible materials to aid skin cancer survivors in healing their post operative wounds. The point of this product is to ease the process of healing a wound after the traumatic process of the removal of skin cancer. Many patients suffer from discomfort from bandaids and unease with obvious bandages that stick out from their body. With Uplift, patients can choose to have the bandage blend into their skin, or a fun color of their own personal preference. Additionally, it will give users a moist environemnt for their wound to fully heal. The detailed design also gives a more aesthetic and fashionable outlook of a bandage that patients will look forward to wearing.
RESEARCH
For this project, the focus was designing a designing a solution to a critical problem that we face as humans. Within the presentation of a soft-good, our job as a designer was to create solutions to a human-centered problem in order to improve overall quality of life within a current social issue, nationally or worldwide. I decided to focus on one of the most common cancers within the United States, skin cancer. Before even thinking about ideation, an extension of guided research on the issue was needed, which is presented below.
Ideation
Within this journey map, I overwent my own personal experience with the process, or journey, of discovering melanoma on my leg in order to create a unique set of possible design opportunities. From there, I outlined my main target age range for the product, young adults, as this was the age group with the most room for preventative measures in regards to skin cancer.
Throughout the development of these rough sketches, there was a focus of having the final product be a realistic, yet functionable design that the user will actually look forward to wearing, while also keeping in mind of originality. Eventually, a new approach to the common bandage was founded, and eventually developed into an idea where a bandage would not just act as a cover to a wound, but as a decoration to it.
