Glace à l’eau

How can we curb the sharp increase in child drownings? How can adults be made aware of the dangers of private pools for toddlers? The game Glace à l’eau is fun and enjoyable while making parents and children feel safe.

The project was born thanks to a design methodology, user tests and prototyping to create an appropriate solution to this problem. The game is a fair way of giving adults responsibility for supervising children when swimming. The simple and inexpensive activity fits in seamlessly with games played around a swimming pool. It encourages change so that swimming remains a carefree fun experience!

" Glace à l’eau addresses the problem of drowning, which has been increasing in young children since 2015. Against the backdrop of the trend for technology, Elise has created a lively and minimalist board game. This game distributes responsibility among the different adults present in turn. Developed with the help of successive tests, it is based on a system of challenges made more attractive by scores. Elise’s research oriented her towards the context of swimming in private pools. She analyzed the effectiveness of existing safety solutions, which are becoming more and more sophisticated. Her conclusion was indisputable: only careful monitoring is truly effective. Furthermore, security systems offer the user the illusion of reliability, which can sometimes lead to dramatic consequences. By restoring the adult’s responsibility for supervision, Elise has found a promising counterbalance: she manages to introduce a binding duty at the precise moment when the adult seeks to detach himself from it. "

Simon Boussard - Care Design Lab Course Leader