For this brief Moe Collective explored isolation caused by hospitalisation. To understand context, we interviewed children with illnesses, and their siblings and parents, as well as hospital employees, including to the Head of Play in Manchester Children’s Hospital.  

From our research, we saw social isolation caused by long-term hospital care negatively affects both the mental and physical health of the patient. Our insight was siblings of hospitalised children share similar feelings of loneliness and isolation as their ill siblings. In order to increase social connectedness of hospitalised children, we proposed the Sibs SmartBand.

The Sibs SmartBand is a wearable smart bracelet that empowers children undergoing hospital care to stay in touch with their siblings and receive support. The band is designed to be as simple as possible to use, allowing siblings to communicate with each other through a series of simple “emoji” buttons that illuminate. The band is designed to be hygienic and child safe.

Part of the challenge of the brief was to bring the idea to life in a simple way to test with users. We did this through a low fidelity paper prototype and 30 second explanatory video. This prototyping worked and we were able to get constructive feedback from users.