Product Innovation: Easy Sheet

As part of a group, I helped bring the Easy Sheet into being. We went through a Design Thinking iterative process to establish a problem seniors face as they get older and find a solution for it..

First we empathized as we conducted interviews and observations of seniors in their home environments.

Through this, we defined our problem to be helping seniors remain independent through the aging process. To our surprise, more than one person mentioned difficulty changing the bedsheets, especially the bottom sheet, due to arthritic hands and back pain.

So we began to ideate. We considered inventing some kind of jack to raise the mattress and make it easier to stretch the sheets around to the bottom. We also entertained creating a vacuum device, where you make the fitted sheet a bit larger than conventional fitted sheets so there would be no tugging and pulling to get the bottom sheet onto the bed--and then you vacuum out the extra air so the sheet has a snug fit. Ultimately we decided to do away with the concept of a "fitted" sheet entirely, and instead create a flat sheet that is spread over the mattress and attached using magnets.

We created a quick prototype and then tested it among peers and seniors. The main feedback we got was that magnets could be unwieldy in the washing machine and might even attach to the drum. Additionally, magnets should be kept away from pacemakers and insulin pumps. Our target market was the same market that uses pacemakers.

So we went back to the ideate stage to brainstorm solutions and ultimately came up with a sheet that attaches via Velcro. Testing was more successful this time.

The Easy Sheet placed second in our class innovation competition.