☰
Monkeystack partnered with POSITURE to produce gamified interactive solutions that improve the posture, mental health and well-being of children, neurodiverse people and aging populations, combatting the problems commonly caused by looking down at a phone or screen for extended periods of time. This is the familiar posture that we all observe daily known as ‘text neck’.
Working with POSITURE’s team of healthcare professionals and people with lived experience, we developed gaming apps for handheld devices controlled by gross body movement, rather than standard fine motor thumb controls. Taking the solution one step further, our collaboration with industrial designers produced an optimised ergonomic handset to offer a full digital prescription of positive posture movements.
We made the problem part of the solution to promote positive learned behaviour – without taking away any of the fun!
Monkeystack collaborated with Andrew Rogers Industrial Design (ARID) to develop ‘The Grip’; an ergonomic handset that works as a corresponding hardware component to POSITURE games. The Grip encourages users to hold their device at appropriate eye-height and become immersed in gameplay with physical movement. Designed and manufactured in SA, The Grip is food safe (vegan) silicone moulded over a BPA free polycarbonate support frame suited to iPad minis.
Trials conducted by Flinders University Digital Health Research Centre found that 93% of participants had a straighter neck angle while playing Discovery Island using The Grip, that it encouraged a sustained, upright posture with significant vertical stability, and that Discovery Island was rated as ‘good to excellent’ (top 10% of scores) compared to benchmarks.