Thank you for Filiz’s question.
Regarding usage scenarios, we would like to add some supplementary details. In China, some elderly people often convert the yards of old-style houses into small vegetable gardens. For elderly residents living in new residential communities, due to the restriction that they cannot use the community spaces arbitrarily, they choose to grow plants on their balconies. Additionally, there is a group of elderly people living in old residential communities who not only grow plants on their balconies but also make use of the unused spaces or flower beds downstairs in the community for planting. Our target audience is exactly this last group of elderly people, and the problem we need to solve is how to transport tools when they need to take care of plants both upstairs (on the balcony) and downstairs (in the community spaces).
The tools they commonly use for caring for both indoor and outdoor plants are all the tools in picture (5-1) except the dipper and the iron shovel. This is because all the other tools are needed for both indoor and outdoor planting.The key question is how to better store these tools after using them for balcony planting and then carry them downstairs for outdoor planting.
Elderly people may have unsteady steps when going downstairs, and the old residential communities where they live often lack elevators, so they need to hold onto handrails to go down.
On one hand, this tool storage bag should be easy to carry—for example, it could be a single-shoulder bag that can be slung over the shoulder while going downstairs. On the other hand, this hand-carried bag needs to secure the gardening tools properly, preventing sharp tools from falling due to the elderly’s unsteady steps and causing harm to them.
For watering tools and large iron shovels, we don’t think you need to consider them as items for storage. Indoors, watering is usually done with water ladles or plastic bottles, while outdoors, water guns and iron shovels are used. Whether indoors or outdoors, these tools are not only different from each other but also difficult to store with lightweight storage tools.
Wish you all the best.
Your brief clearly explains the needs of elderly residents who garden both on their balconies and in shared community spaces. Focusing on a lightweight, secure, single shoulder storage bag is very appropriate, especially considering their need to hold handrails while going downstairs. Excluding watering tools and large shovels keeps the design practical and realistic
Thank you for your affirmation of the design direction!