Design and Evaluation of Pet-Carrying Walking-Aid for Seniors

• Main Authors: Hsing-Huan Ma, 馬興寰
• Other Authors: 黃啟梧
• Format: Others
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/3fw8vf

碩士 === 國立臺北科技大學 === 工業設計系創新設計碩士班（碩士在職專班） === 105 === The purpose of this research is to increase the willingness in walking-aid usage for seniors. As shown in previous researches, due to the mental stress and shameful feeling from using the walking-aid, seniors tend to abandon or simply not use the walking-aid. And animal therapy is known for eliminating negative feelings, which is good in this situation. Also, keeping a pet means walking the pet constantly, which leads to higher usage of the walking-aid. From focus group, with 21 seniors over 65 years old from Taipei and New Taipei city who are experienced in pet keeping and are in needs of walking-aids, we found out that for a walking-aid that can carry a pet, seniors want it to have the following features: control of the pet, interaction with the pet, easy to use, multi-function, takes little room, pet comfort, universal usage, doesn’t look walking-aid. We built a prototype and let 10 seniors who needs walking-aid and are experienced with pet use the prototype. We found that comparing to traditional walking-aid, 60% of the users are more willing to use the new walking-aid which can carry their pet, since they felt the joy from the company of their pet. Some users of this product found it difficult to operate, taking up too much space and still looks like a typical walking-aid. We believe solving these problems in the future will further increase the willingness in walking-aids usage.