Bliss Charity NICU Baby app Discovery

This exciting project had a team of 4 students investigate the viability of an app and accompanying product that allows families to communicate with neonatal babies while in intensive care. The project was fronted by Bliss charity ambassador Sarra Hoy who has lived experience of her children needing neonatal intensive care. She found being unable to communicate with them distressing and wanted to create an app that would bring comfort and support to future NICU families.

We did 8 weeks of ethnographic research in a NICU ward, fully immersing ourselves within the unit, interviewing families of babies, past and present. We then showed our findings to a range of medical and design professionals. The project was passed over to student interaction designers, and the app is currently in the prototyping stage. Our findings were then passed over to University staff to use in a future research paper.

We had to learn ethics and empathy when interviewing due to the nature of the project.