The passion project, Stayhome-Living app, is ensuring seniors remain connected throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Co-Founders, Barry Jones and Carolyn Glazier were inspired to create an app designed for seniors, after seeing the impacts COVID-19 had on seniors, and their everyday life.
“Seniors were starting to struggle with the newfound isolation, and the loneliness was clearly having a detrimental impact on their well-being,” Jones said.
“We have so much technology around us, a lot of seniors have tablets, laptops, and smartphones, but really only use them for checking the weather, emails, and maybe the headlines. We wanted to help the seniors get the most out of technology,” Jones said.
The Stayhome-Living app was designed to keep connections alive, with a focus on entertainment, and physical and mental engagement.
While creating the Stayhome-Living app, Jones and Glazier conducted a survey with about 150 seniors, asking what they wanted to see from the app, what would help them, what their limitations regarding technology were, and what was on their wish list for the app.
They used the information collected from the survey to create the beta type of the app.
“We took the app live within the community, and it grew and got a lot of interest in Alberta. We’ve gone coast to coast with users now, we’re quite encouraged with the early uptake of the app,” Jones said.
“The user experience was key in our planning stages, and from there we created a virtual house, we wanted users to be able to use it who have no technology experience at all, all the way up to savvy users,” Glazier said.
Adding, “We designed the house with windows, so you are able to touch the window and it goes out to a sub-menu that links to other services, entertainment, and activities.”
Jones and Glazier have received a lot of positive feedback from app users, including one user who after she recovered from COVID-19 was able to step outside of her comfort zone and use the exercise resources.
“Now that’s she’s getting stronger she’s doing exercise programs, and it was something she wouldn’t have tried before, but because the content within the house is curated specifically for our users, she felt safe in exploring and trying new things that before she wouldn’t have done,” Glazier said.
“The highlights is the feedback, the positive affirmations from the users, and working with the content providers, that was a great process, people were very positive about getting their content online,” Jones said.
For Jones and Glazier, it was extremely important to help seniors deal with loneliness and re-establish a sense of connection.
“We want to get it out to as many seniors as we can, and create that mental engagement, a feeling of being part of a community and having a connection,” Jones said.
Stayhome-Living is a progressive app that is constantly being updated and revised to fit the needs and wants of users.
“It’s very easy for us to modify, we can get a feel for the content, we can see what content is being used, and expand on the offerings. We do try to give it the full range in offerings for user levels,” Jones said.
“I use the house now because I find it so useful. Although it’s designed specifically for older adults, seniors to be are having fun with it too,” Glazier said.
Although the Stayhome-Living app began as a passion project, Jones and Glazier are excited to continue expanding the project.
“It did start as a passion project to address an issue that was brought about by the pandemic, but we feel this project has legs going forward,” Jones said.
“The way people are doing business, and the way they are conducting a lot of their daily routines are changing, the way people are consuming has altered, and as the next wave of seniors come in, they are more used to technology, this is second nature to them,” he said.
For more information visit, https://www.stayhome-living.com/dev/.
