Fritz - the product that gives you a hand

Was es macht

Fritz is designed to help people with upper limb disabilities or grip difficulties. With its silicone base, it holds any personal care product firmly in place, making it easy to open and close with one hand.

Deine Inspiration

The grip of the hands is the most important tool we have, but often also the one we take the most for granted: just being immobilized for even a day is enough to realize how difficult it is to live being able to use only one hand. There are people, however, for whom this is the norm, and who daily have to cope with a world designed for two hands.

So funktioniert es

Fritz consists of six components, designed to also function individually. At the base is the stand, which includes a slot for a mirror and a rail joint, useful for removing the shell and using it independently. The shell has several functions: it houses the silicone accessory; it has a hole at the end for squeezing tubes; and it includes an interlock in the base for opening larger packages or for resting stably on the silicone base when stored. The heart of the design is precisely the silicone accessory, designed to house the products to be used. This component emulates the gesture of gripping: once inserted, the products remain firmly in place, allowing the user to use them freely, according to their own intuition, without constraint. The accessory has five flared holes with a fixed diameter, which, thanks to the elasticity of the material, can be adapted to different sizes.

Designprozess

The first phase involved finding the joint to support Fritz in its wall-hanging phase. Here, the idea was to have a support with several holes to accommodate multiple accessories inserted through the rail joint. This phase researched which material was best suited to accommodate the various diameters of the products through a single hole, and it featured polyurethane foam as the protagonist. Although the material proved to be excellent for the purpose, the hypothesis of having more accessories was discarded because of its waste of space and material: in fact, by inserting an accessory, part of the holes remained unusable. These considerations thus led to the second development, in which the rail interlocking was retained, but to which a single accessory with multiple holes was added to accommodate all products. Initially there were 5 holes with 3 different sizes, which later evolved into 5 holes with 5 different sizes. The second development also introduced the need for the product to remain fixed either on the wall or on a flat surface. This problem was obviated by inserting another rail joint between the shell and the support. From here then, the design led to the final development of Fritz.

Warum es anders ist

Fritz is unique because it makes the use of inaccessible products accessible. In fact, Fritz allows its users to be autonomous and independent in the use of personal care products, that is, products used daily and several times a day. Conferring autonomy then means conforming the user experience and making it as universal as possible. In fact, Fritz can be used by everyone, according to the principles of Design for All, thus eliminating any kind of discrimination and including as many users as needed. What also makes my design unique is its versatility and adaptability to multiple situations. As much as it was born for personal care products, Fritz is a system that can be adapted to other types of products as well: in fact, the heart is not the end, but the means, that is, the fact that it goes to emulate the lack of grip and relieve the user of this difficulty, often imposed by the products themselves.

Pläne für die Zukunft

In terms of development, Fritz is ready and aims to be published and made available to the public. It would be ideal, in fact, if in the future Fritz were available to everyone and for every type of need. In fact, the system is designed to be adaptable to every situation, which makes it a universal product that can be shared by everyone. Fritz is ready to go out to lend a helping hand to anyone who needs it.

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