top of page
About the project
passion project | 2017 | concept development | system design
A system that helps the elderly people with their grocery shopping needs from the neighbors
This is a project based on the neighborhood I live in, which is in Shanghai...
Nearly 40% percent of the population in the neighborhood is over 60 years old...
As one of the most traditional living neighborhoods in Shanghai, my district has a much bigger problem of the aging society compared to the rest parts of the city.
According to the census conducted in my neighborhood in 2018, out of every 10 residents, nearly 4 of them would age above 60 years old -and the ratio is still growing...
Cooking is important in their daily life...
Mr. and Mrs. Yang
age: 82 and 80
retired, live with grandson (aged 7)
Mrs. Hu
age: 64
retired, lives with husband (aged 73)
Mrs. Chen
age: 67
retired, lives with husband (aged 70)
I interviewed some of the elderly people in the neighborhood, I found most of them live by themselves or with their young grandkids. Also, a majority of them are experiencing health problems of different kinds.
Therefore, cooking for the family becomes a crucial task every day.
Doing grocery shopping becomes their biggest challenge during the day
Research Highlights
Grocery shopping usually takes a long time
Groceries are heavy for the elderly to lift
They have difficulties walking with the groceries
Even harder when it's summer or winter
Not able to go out when they don't feel good
Difficulties they have
How do they get there?
Most of them walk to the grocery store
The tools they use?
Many elderly people choose to use trolleys when doing their grocery shopping,
but it's heavy, low, and difficult to use on rainy days.
Current ways to help
The elderly people care a lot about their private information. For most of the time, they are not comfortable with sharing their address with strangers.
What do the elder people really need?
Trust-worthy helpers
Groceries with good qualities
Spend less time
Secured personal information
Can we get neighbors to help?
In Shanghai, there are many people who use public transportation to commute. Therefore, we can see people walking on the street within their neighborhood a lot. Some of them stop by the grocery store on their way home. What if we can get them involved in helping?
In order to make it easier for the neighbors to help as well as protecting the elderly's personal information, the
helping system is based on a relay process. Instead of having one neighbor carry all the way, it can be divided into several sessions -take it to the next help station that's convenient for you, and someone else will come to continue the helping journey.
I name the project Xianglin because it means "next to" as well as "helping neighbors" in Chinese.
Products needed
The system consists of three parts: carts with screens, used to carry groceries; help stations, where the carts sit and get charged; and an APP, splits to elderly mode, and helper mode, providing the service.
Where should the help station be?
location of
grocery stores
walking distance
(1km | 10 mins)
location of
help stations
First of all, there should be one help station near each grocery store so that the groceries can be direct packed.
For the others, I studied the spreading of grocery stores in my neighborhood and drew the circle representing the walking distance from that store. Then I set the other stations at the places near the living areas while trying to cover the whole community.
How to attract neighbors to help?
To attract the neighbors to help, I am thinking about what if we can link the Xianglin system with the social credit system?
The more one helps, the more credits he or she will get. With higher points, the user can have some benefits such as easier to apply for a visa, higher credit lines, or some discounts when shopping.
bottom of page