Carebuddy
An user friendly app to support caregivers in daily tasks
Background
CareBuddy provides caregivers time to rest by coordinating schedules with friends and family who are willing to volunteer to help so that caregivers can avoid emotional and physical burnout.It is an online service that informs and connects family and friends and gives them the opportunity to volunteer whenever necessary and creates a schedule for them to serve. Caregivers are responsible for the physical care and emotional support of older adults who can no longer care for themselves due to illness, injury or disability. This often includes providing support with financial and legal affairs. For individuals who take on the responsibility of caring for another person with a sickness or disability, it can often be challenging to see beyond the individual experience.
The challenge
Create an IOS application which coordinate caregivers and volunteers sharing tasks for seniors they love and care.
The outcome
IOS application platform that is easy to use, reliable and that makes family caregivers to find help and supports.
The branding developed conveys care and support of Carebuddy’s belief in a simple and effective manner.
Role
UI/UX designer responsible for user research, strategy, UI design, prototyping, visual design, usability testing, and branding within a Lean UX framework.
Process
Define
Task Flows
User Flows
Persona
Site Map
Research
Competitive Analysis
Primary Research
Synthesize User Personas
Design
Wireframes
Low-fidelity Prototypes
Brand Style Guide
Logo Design
User Interface Design
Refine
Usability Test
Usability Test Findings
Iterations & Next Steps
Research
In order to gather insights on the subject, I have conducted two rounds of research. A competitor analysis to better understand online caregiving related business landscape and, 1:1 interviews which helped me to identify caregivers’ needs, pain points, requirements and to identify opportunity areas to design against.
Competitive analysis
The competitive analysis was conducted to get a better understanding already existing platforms, including both direct and indirect competitors, and to identify key features and requirement.
Summary of findings
Some of the best practices I identified include: calendar to organize multiple tasks, filter and sort and reminder to remember events or tasks.
1:1 Interview
Research setup
Interviewers were conducted with 3 participants between 30 to 60 years old. All the participants were selected base on their interest and involvement in the topic. They have already experienced caregiving family members in the past and they are aware of difficulties to provide help for minors. This gave me insights on what pain points they have encountered and what tool and information they needed in progress.
Findings overview
Goals
Fast and quick ways to connect caregivers to people who offer helps.
To be able to navigate the platform smoothly to achieve user’s goal.
To be able to evaluate volunteers who want to be part of a group.
Pain points
● Worry about seniors' vulnerability due to mental or physical disabilities.
● Difficulty in finding someone to help when they have other emergencies
● Emotional physical exhaustion.
Needs
● Features that help quickly notify others of caregiver’s needs
● Approach various ways to resolve user’s difficulties online.
● A simple and efficient platform to assist user’s task.
Opportunities
● Figuring out ways using features to organize caregiver’s task.. ( All participants had a difficulty managing their time while caregiving. )
● Use features or communication tools as ways to confirm senior’s safety and security.
( One participant wanted to be able to confirm senior’s wellbeing from a long distance. )
● Features that help users to connect volunteers efficiently and quickly.
( Two participants had a hard time to a request for immediate help. )
Define
From the research phase, I was able to gather insights which were synthesized into a persona that will later be used as a basis to design against. Then. I created a storyboard based on the persona to identify possible user scenarios.
Persona
Sara has full-time job and she is a caregiver for her mother who lives in 20 minute distance from her house. She calls her mother regularly and does her errands such as picking up the grocery, medicine and doctor’s appointment. She juggles often between her schedules and caregiving her mother. Sara’s pain points and needs will be used as starting point for the design process.
Storyboard
It was created to visually explore and outline the user experience. It goes through a couple of scenarios that are part of Sara’s life. The UX storyboard helped me to understand and visualise Sara’s motivations and experiences within a specific context.
The sketches show and explore a couple of scenarios: pick up her mother’s medicine and be reassured by her mother’s wellbeing when she is not picking up the phone.
Design
Once I identified the main requirements and that meet the user’s needs and expectations, I started sketching the pages that I would need to have and map out flows.
Task Flows
Create the task flows helped me to create focus, identify different scenarios and outline possible paths that users might go through.
Task 1: Sara needs someone to pick up her mother’s medicine today. She will work late at work. Her niece received message and immediately respond and Sara added to her schedule to be reminded.
Task 2: Sara is at work and remembers her mother fell in her backyard while she was gardening last month and was left for an hour. She wants to make sure her mother is safe at her house.
Task 3: Sara wants to discuss with her mother about Saturday lunch with her aunt and choose restaurant they will meet while discussing. Once her mother decides she adds it to the calendar.
User flow
Designing the user flows helped me to outline the different pathways that users might take and connect the different touchpoints of the app creating a seamless experience.
Full-time account manager Sara wants to ask volunteer members to pick up her mother’s medicine and check her out if she is okay, she recently fell at the backyard. She also wants to remind her mother friends gathering on Saturday and find the restaurant where her mother wants to meet them.
Sketches and Wireframes
The sketches helped me to explore different ideas and start defining the page structure and hierarchy of the elements within the pages. After several iterations, the sketches were translated into wireframes for both desktop and mobile.
After user flows designing, I come up with ideas of a several pages that are needed by users in various scenarios.
Based on my rough sketches, I built Low fidelity wireframes with more concrete ideas of how design elements can be presented effectively to users.
Style guide and branding
After having defined flows and page structure, I went through a few iterations to define a design language and visual direction for the website. I wanted to create a design style that reflects hope in a community with warm hearted, trustworthy people who are awaiting to give helps for the best condition for both seniors and caregivers.
UI Kit
Final outcome
Based on the feedback I received throughout the design process, I learned how detailed the wireframe should be.
I incorporated colors and fonts, and branding and visual details as close as the final stage and ensured as a better communication tool with developers.
Refine
Within this phase I have created prototype to test consumers and gather inputs for improvement. The participants were given the task of
1. Posting the message that they need and find a volunteer by communicating in the chatroom
2. Monitoring risky areas through CCTV to ensure senior’s safety
3. Talking over the facetalk page and assisting a senior to find a restaurant
Usability tests
I was able to find 3 volunteers and made a schedule considering their time. They are family members and friends. The volunteers are in their 30s to 50s, 3 participants with a moderator. From start to finish, session lasts about 15- 20minutes. 100% of participants were able to complete their tasks to get helps what they need. I identified a several problems while I observed their behaviors and interviewed them to share their pain and thought.
Cons
Hard to identify icons
Small buttons that cause mistyping
Distractive layout on dashboard page
Pros
Ease of navigation
Simple design
Manage schedules
Next steps
After usability test, I observed all participants were impressed by clarity of steps in navigation. 2 participants complained that it is hard to perceive some design elements to associate with their functions and some buttons need to be resized to prevent errors. All participants also mentioned they had difficulty reading updates on each section in the dashboard page. I will follow up by these solutions below
Sections will be differentiated on the dashboard by adding shapes or colors.
Tags followed by icons and buttons to increase functionality
Prioritize color uses and preventing errors by resizing buttons
Takeaways
This was a challenging project to complete independently, I learned a lot about what other caregiving apps provide services nowadays how they could be. It gave me opportunity to get better practice on the design process specially the iteration process which is crucial to improve navigation and how to display essential elements and maximize features effectively.