# Philips

> A research collaboration with the UK Design Council for Philips, where I led a team of design researchers. We mapped the whole ecosystem of support around elderly people in care and the family carers beside them, and the very human strain that comes with it. We delivered the findings, themes and opportunity areas.

**Question:** How do you design for the carer, not just the cared-for?  
**Tags:** Service Design, Healthcare  
**Focus:** Design Lead  
**Case study:** https://www.sebastian-nause-blueml.com/philips.html

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Care, seen from the kitchen table.

Researching the lives of elderly people and their carers - and mapping where Philips could help. With the UK Design Council.

## At a glance

- **Client:** Philips - in collaboration with the UK Design Council
- **My role:** Design Lead - led a team of design researchers through user research & opportunity mapping
- **The people:** Elderly people in care + their primary carers
- **Deliverable:** A report + presentation: findings, pain points, themes, and opportunity areas

## The brief

### Where could Philips genuinely help?

Philips wanted to know what it could build for elderly people in care, and the family carers beside them. With the UK Design Council, we mapped their whole world of support: hospital visits, home equipment, and the strain of caring for someone you love.

## The research

### Work that needed real delicacy.

In-home interviews about health, dependence, and often cancer. Conversations this personal don't follow a discussion guide. They need time, empathy, and the tact to know when to stop asking.

*Image caption: In-home research: life stories, kept in photo albums.*

## The method

### Cards that let people tell hard stories.

Situation cards gave participants something to point at when words were difficult - "I wish I had someone to help me make important decisions around care."

*Image caption: Situation cards, sorted at a participant's table.*

## The synthesis

### Heavy stories, distilled into clear themes.

Every interview went up on the wall. Two things surfaced: how much one small break means to a carer giving up their own life, and how people rely on people, not static information, to find the help that exists.

*Image caption: The insight wall: themes and key insights from every interview.*

## Opportunity areas

### Opportunities Philips could act on.

The themes became broad opportunity areas. Each one a card the Philips team could pick up, debate and prioritise.

*Image caption: Opportunity cards: each area gets a what, a why and a how.*

## Making it tangible

### Concepts, taken far enough to feel real.

Selected opportunities were sketched into early concepts. One was a shared care network connecting the care recipient, their family and their care workers.

*Image caption: Concept wireframes: one care network around one person.*

## The deliverable

### Findings, themes, opportunities.

We delivered a report and a final presentation: the research findings, the key pain points, the themes, and the opportunity areas where Philips could help.

That was the scope. What Philips built from it afterwards, I honestly can't say. The brief was to map the space, not to ship the product.

## Looking back

### What stays with me

The hardest and most rewarding part was the research itself: building enough trust that people would open up about things this private - illness, dependence, the lives carers quietly give up. You can't get that from a survey. It takes empathy, and real care in how you ask.