Service design study to motivate people with disabilities to exercise within their communities

Research Objectives: This study identifies ways to motivate people with disabilities to exercise in their local communities after hospital discharge to prevent social isolation.

Design: It also designs a service through a Citizen Policy Design Project, double diamond process. A key element of the service design initiative is citizen (policy-consumers) participation and proposition and development of policy ideas.

Setting: Through these, we identify obstacles and present ideas about the motivation for exercise at the community level.

Participants: The citizens’ policy design group was organized with 3 persons with disabilities, 1 older adult, 3 healthcare professionals (physician, physical therapist, and occupational therapist), 3 public servants, and a service designer.

Interventions: Not applicable.

Main Outcome Measures: To provide a consumer-orientated service concept for people with disabilities, a service design approach was applied.
The service design method was used to investigate goal setting, shadowing, and in-depth interviews to discover disabled people’s hidden needs for exercise following the double diamond design model process.
To visualize consumer needs and service models for people with disabilities, stakeholder maps, the creation of personas, customer journey maps, and storyboards were used.
People with disabilities noted barriers to exercise include the lack of information and psychological problems after becoming disabled.

Results: Based on these needs, two service ideas were proposed as implementation strategies for people with disabilities: Hotline ‘1221’ and another smartphone application based on a user’s location. The hotline and application are designed to offer mentoring services from experts or those who have experienced a disability earlier. Persons with disabilities also have access to information on social rehabilitation at the community level.

Conclusions: People with disabilities need reliable information about their disabilities, practical advice, and area-based exercise communities. If this service design concept is realized, it will help improve the health and quality of life of this group by providing reliable information about their disabilities, practical exercise advice, and area-based exercise programs.

Author(s) Disclosures: Aerim Kim, Jung Ah Lee, Hye Min Choi, Sung Shin Kim, Hyosun Kweon*