The Development of Smart Multifunctional Stepladder: Designing Older Adults Monitoring Application Using Design Thinking and EFD Methods

The increasing number of older adults in Malaysia motivates researchers to develop the Multifunctional Stepladder, a chair-like ladder that adopts the flexibility and independence concept. On the other hand, the number of older adults in Indonesia is increasing, as is the number of nursing homes . Unfortunately, those nursing homes are facing inadequate facilities problem. These inadequate facilities lead to health and safety problems for older adults who stay in nursing homes. Thus, this research aimed to develop the Smart Multifunctional Stepladder as an improvement of the previous- ly developed Multifunctional Stepladder for nursing home usage. The Smart Multifunctional Stepladder was developed by integrating it with a monitoring application. The methods used are a combination of Design Thinking and Ergonomic Function Deployment (EFD). The monitoring application development process is detailed in this paper. Three nursing homes participated in this study. The in-depth interview and questionnaire survey were executed. The results are the Smart Multifunctional Stepladder integrated with older adult monitoring application called SIMOLAN. SIMOLAN is used to record the health and safety conditions of older adults who use the Smart Multifunctional Step-ladder. The Multifunctional Stepladder design is also improved and equipped with an emergency button.