for the introduction thank you mark for
having me here today
so I’m Emily and I’m a product designer
and people usually at this point would
want me to explain a little bit further
by myself or they would switch off
because they think I’m just another
designer who makes things pretty for a
living but sometimes I wonder what if I
called I said good afternoon everyone
I’m Emily and I’m a doctor immediately
your reaction would be different
probably you would say I’m a young
female who’s probably very smart and
with a very big heart so I’ve always
wanted to myself why patent design of
the profession also seen as something
that can contribute to our community
why can’t design also have a positive
feedback from people I know that many of
you in this room might not think this
way but at the same time I’ve constantly
been told that design is not a
profession white because it doesn’t make
money and apparently it doesn’t
contribute to our society so I get the
conversation usually ends up with Emily
you should reconsider your future
because design is not a profession but
usually I don’t listen to people so what
happened is I went on with it and I
believe that design can contribute to
our society in different ways so let me
tell you a little bit more about my
story so I was actually raised in a
family with three generations living
under the same roof this meant that
leaven of us lived together here we have
20 people around but I lived with I
lived with half of these people and I
would say that my family is almost like
a little community in itself as you can
imagine it’s a lot of learning to adapt
to each other’s living pattern learning
to contributing to helping each other
and most importantly we have a lot of
sharing caring and respecting so I would
say that although we love each other we
never express our love through physical
touch like hugs and kisses
neither do we use any words so how do we
express flow we usually express love
through the act of serving and let me
give you a very generic example here my
mother who’s here tonight she used to
work day and night just so that my
brother and I can live a life where we
don’t have to worry too much she paid
the password similarly though this act
of selfless giving was wasn’t only for
us it was also for her parents and for
brothers and sisters so since I was
young observing her I realized that I
could also make a difference I was
learning from her and I understood the
act of serving is very important so I
realized that no matter what age what
size or what gender I am I could also
make a difference in my little community
I realized that I could make the people
around me happy and when I make people
happy I am happy too so as I was growing
up I was observing things around me and
I was very aware of what I wanted to do
and I realized that there was a lot of
elements in our living environment that
could be changed and it could benefit
from better design and for this reason I
wanted to product designing and I hope
that through product designing I could
make even the smallest difference you
know in our society so unfortunately in
chapter 9
my grandfather was diagnosed with
Parkinson’s sorry and so those of you
who don’t know what Parkinson’s it it is
basically a disease that affects your
mobility and as you can see from the
video it affects your muscle stiffness
which means that it makes it very
difficult for you to office at the same
time it makes your hands and voluntary
trembles and most importantly is when
you are diagnosed with Parkinson’s you
are to live with this for the rest of
your life because Parkinson disease
there’s still no cure for it and what’s
it which means that as time goes on
those symptoms I talked about just now
only gets worse and so now try imagining
to have these symptoms try imagining
this and try imagining that your limbs
start to tremble a lot and you don’t
want to go out to the public because you
are afraid that your friends and your
family would see this
so you instead lock yourself into your
own room and what’s worse is that time
permit you actually start suffering
because you fear to even go to the
bathroom if you don’t want people to go
to the bathroom but if you don’t have
someone assisting you you might fall and
this was what I was seeing in my
grandfather he was becoming he felt that
he was very worthless and he wanted
independence again she wanted dignity so
for this reason I went on a mission with
my professor to design a toilet to
redesign the toilet to make sure that he
can’t gain independence again and gain
dignity again and so what’s the problem
with existing toilet so the problem of
existing adaptive toilet is that they
have handles on both sides or one side
this is good for standing sitting and
also a support but what we realized it
didn’t it didn’t actually help the main
problem and the main problem is actually
de turning around motion and by turning
around I mean when we approached the
toilet we have to turn to say and this
very very simple and trivial motion that
none of us really think about actually
causes a huge problem for Parkinson’s
patients or users with restricted
mobility because they if you can imagine
you’re already trembling you’re already
very desperate for the toilet and you
feel it you took time to get to the
toilet you’re about to to birth and
suddenly you still have to turn around
like this one step at a time and that
was like my grandpa so imagine how much
stress has to go
their mind and at the same time distress
actually opens up chances of thought and
injury so for this reason my professor
and I thought what is you can approach
the toilet without turning around
anymore what if you can approach the
toilet with a forward-facing stance so
we went through a few design process we
went from something that was very
mechanical at the beginning that wasn’t
very appealing to even use to something
more like a whistle form which was
actually very chunky for homes of Hong
Kong to something more streamlined and
having the sister and even implemented
inside the ceramic of the toilet finally
this was our first prototype this is
Libya the name I gave the toilet and
this is basically a Parkinson’s patients
toilet that’s also suitable the family
member so what same point about this is
it wood it doesn’t require defense the
patient’s to have to turn around anyone
to use a toilet because now they can
actually approach the toilet just like
riding a horse
this eliminates the need for them to
turn around and make sure that they
don’t have any Falls and eliminate that
that injury or possibility of any
injuries at the same time the toilet has
integrated handles which means that
family members don’t have to worry about
walls not having handles anymore or not
being able to integrate handles anymore
because the toilet actually has kind of
that does it for you at the same time
why is it called a two-in-one toilet
because we want it to make sure that
just because patients are safe we don’t
want to sacrifice a comfort of family
members we want to make sure that family
members also have a choice to choose how
to use the toilet they want to so Libya
can actually be reverted back to a
normal toilet very quickly and they can
cleaning also becomes a very difficult
part for participation and also users
with Rick the mobility as you can
imagine and even if they can’t clean
cleaning well also becomes very
difficult so just like Japanese toilet
maybe you also have automatic
cleaning functions which allow them to
clean well where the hadn’t to worry too
much so at this point I was very amazed
because Libya was actually still a
concept and it still had many
improvements to be made but what was
most amazing is already triggered a lot
of reaction from a community and by
community I mean
Parkinson’s disease patient I mean
social workers and I mean designers so
because Libya is a human centered
product I wanted to make sure that
during this process Parkinson’s patients
also have a safe and how this toilet
actually works and whether it’s actually
comfortable for them so you can see here
I still had a lot of improvements I
needed to be made because they were
telling me there’s different things that
I need to so solve which is perfect
because design is they try and error
process so that was if they gave me very
constructive comments but what was most
amazing about this experience is that
they were telling me they found hope and
the reason is because a lot of these
patients they actually get rejected from
their families
believing that the only reason why
they’re so slow is because they wanted
attention so for them to have some
stranger working for them doing
something that can alleviate their
pressure make them very happy and make
them find hope so at the same time with
social workers I received handwritten
letters from social workers telling me
to keep doing what I’m doing at the same
time they were giving me more ideas and
tell me what else I can do to help the
aging society to live better at home so
just like how the participation found
hope in having a stranger doing
something for them I also felt amazing
the fact that people who I don’t know
are actually helping and contributing
and making this product better at the
same time giving me new ideas on what I
can do so this is when I realized after
Libya I don’t want to end here our
make sure that I can go further I want
to make sure that the whole toilet space
the experience can be redefined by
making better products and I hope that
in the bathroom space it can always be
safe for the patients at the same time
it can always be upgradable no matter
how much you’re aging and I hope that in
the future no matter what how aging is
perceived now in the future it’s going
to be perceived as a positive thing it’s
gonna be an upgrade not a downgrade at
the age so in the past 10 minutes I
spent a lot of my time talking about how
design can contribute to our society by
talking about how I designed to serve
and it’s not just about making pretty
things but what I really want to say
today is actually we are all here
designed to serve and what do I mean by
this so for me serving is about giving
and by giving I mean giving your time
giving your presence and giving your
attention and if you really think about
it all of us in this room have these
resources it’s just it’s a choice to
choose whether or not we want to give to
our community so let me end with a very
short story that happened to me a month
ago and it illustrates how selfish
people are still in our society and how
much learning we still have to do so
this is in one chai and a month ago my
partner and I were actually standing
exactly where the photo was taken
waiting to cross the road and what
happened was we heard someone screaming
and then suddenly from that escalator
there we saw an elderly lowing down the
escalator and obviously immediately we
ran from it out early to try to help but
I still remember very very perfectly
what happened that day I remember that
there were a lot of pedestrians around
just like this picture and they were
even closer to the elderly than we were
but guess what they did they did nothing
they stood there and they observed
anyway so we got the elderly
we brought him to the bridge and we were
asked asking him he had some bruises on
his face as he was bleeding so we caught
the ambulance straight away and when
Emilie’s got here I went down to escort
the paramedics to where the elderly is
so one of the paramedic had all the
equipment’s with him and he was heading
for the elevator which was actually
right next to the escalator and in the
elevator waiting area there were a lot
of pedestrians and these pedestrians
noticed that these paramedics were there
but yes what happened one day when the
elevator door opened this time they
didn’t do nothing they actually ran for
it so what happened is these paramedics
were forced to go up there the surgeon
said and luckily the elderly suffered
very minimal injuries and she was sent
to the closest hospital but in this
thirty minutes what I saw was something
very scary our society is still very
selfish and what I realize is just
making better products for the evening
Society to look better at home is not
enough because it’s not actually solving
the bigger problem the bigger problem is
we all need to start learning to serve
each other and take care of each other’s
well-being serving can be as easy as
opening the door for someone or even
helping when you need to help so what
I’ve learned over the years is to create
a good product we need a team of people
to be doing it
at the same time to create a good
Society in a better society we all need
to start to learn to contribute and
serve each other better [Applause]