Empathize

Find a user for your possible solution- Who are they? Find out how they are being affected and what they want/need as a solution? At this point you will want to interview a number of the users.

Users for our possible solutions are people who suffer from Epilepsy.

What’s the Story? (Dig deep)

Epilepsy can be triggered by anything no matter how big or small so preventing yourself from having epilepsy becomes very very hard. For example we interviewed a 16 year old girl that had been diagnosed with leukemia. With this diagnosis came chemotherapy which caused a brain injury, (which is very rare, only one other person in New Zealand has the same brain injury). This brain injury triggered her epilepsy. She will have epilepsy for the rest of her life but she has come up with multiple coping mechanisms, she plays with a rubix cube before bed to relieve stress. She has also learnt some sign language so that she can communicate with her family after having a seizure. One thing she struggles with is independence, because she always has to have someone with her in case she has a seizure and usually has 3-4 small ones a day. After she has a seizure she is very dazed and cannot walk or speak, hence why she learnt sign language. My father (Steve Richardson) Was diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of 3 due to convulsions from an allergic reaction to a whooping cough injection. He has had Epilepsy for numerous years and suffers from a type of epilepsy called Grandmal. Epilepsy is a very serious condition, people with epilepsy are forever in constant worry about harming themselves or the loved ones around them. The medication preserves life, so without it you will die. The medication does affect the quality of life, you are faced with many side effects such as depression, drowsiness and bipolarism. My father has also come face to face with discrimination for having epilepsy, because of the lack of awareness Epilepsy is not taken seriously.