ComfortCare
Quick Description
As a group we created and designed a mobile app for caregivers. Users are able to access resources, medical supplies, and a community of caregivers to make them feel more confident in their new role.
Goal
To create a platform that allows caregivers to gain knowledge in providing care and find resources to improve their own emotional well being.
Our Mission
ComfortCare mission is to all it's users to to access resources, medical supplies, and a community of caregivers to make them feel more confident in their new caregiver role.
Resources
Connect
Marketplace
What did I do?
My Roles and Responsibilities
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Initial brainstorming, research, and collaboration
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Generating Ideas
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Discover a healthcare issue or subject matter
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Create a plan
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Storyboard
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Create survey
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Design marketplace section of the app
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Style Guide
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Provide feedback and adjustments to all pages of the app
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Usability testing Lofi,Midfi,& Hifi prototype
Storyboard
Team Collaboration:
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User interviews
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Send out survey
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Proto-Personas
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User Persona
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Problem Statement
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Affinity Diagram
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Card Sorting
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User Testing Plan
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Value Proposition Canvas
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Presentation Slide Deck
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Feature Prioritization
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User Flow
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Wire-framing
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Designing the app
The Problem & Our Solution
The Problem
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A person who is assuming the role of a primary caregiver is often doing so with no prior experience and to the detriment of their well being. We have observed that caregivers feel they have no tangible support for healthcare resources, burdening them to figure out the needs of their loved one and putting their own needs last.
Our Solution
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ComfortCare a platform that allows caregivers to gain knowledge in providing care, find lightly used medical equipment at a cheaper rate, and connect with other caregivers to improve their own emotional well being.
We Believe
Our app will allow our users to feel less alone and lost in their new role.
Increase in knowledge of how to properly provide care.
Decrease loneliness
The Goal
Provide comfort and care to those who do so for their loved ones.
Our Process
Topic
We were tasked with solving a healthcare related issue so we went with a topic that some of our team members have personally experienced, care giving.
Initial Discussion
We went over a variety of different healthcare issues but as a whole our group felt the subject of care giving hit home. Each member of the group knew someone who is a caregiver or was one in the past. This subject was tough to talk about
Group Decision
Once we decided on the topic we narrowed it down to four main features:
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Marketplace
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Connect
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Resources
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Profile
Our Home Page
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Research
During our research portion each designer did some interviews with these five objectives in mind:
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Understand what pain points caregivers are experiencing with the current support system and how they manage their new role
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Discover what factors would help families feel more supported prepared
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Process the real-time feelings of caregivers and not assume what they might need
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Understand what caregivers are needing in the before, during, and after process of care giving
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Understand how the users took care of themselves
User Insight
End Result
In our research we discovered that users were mostly women, who gave a lot and asked for very little in return. They ranged from late 30’s to 60’s. They lovingly took care of their parents or a spouse. They were hit with a hard reality that turned their life upside down instantaneously. They felt they lacked both emotional support and enough resources to learn how to do their new role. But more than learning a new role, they wanted to love and care for them well.
Definition
Affinity Diagram
Zoomed in Highlights
Once we collected all the information and wrote out individual sticky notes out we grouped them into their respected sections. Once we finished that we used that info to create our user persona and empathy map.
Persona's
Proto Persona Ginger Davis User Persona Jane Perez
Empathy Map
To create the empathy map we took what was voted highest on our affinity diagram. We separated them into the four above sections says, thinks, does,and feels.
Value Proposition
To help us define our value proposition statement, we created a canvas of pains and from both sides (Product & Customer).
Ideation
I like, I wish, What if
As a group we built out each section based on the data we collected.
Dot Voting
We selected one sticky from each section that we felt captured the ones below it. We dot voted as a team on which ones we thought would be best suited for the ComfortCare app.
Idea Prioritization
What we implement into the app was positioned high importance and what we felt we could produce in 3 weeks time was placed as high feasibility. Anything that was both highly feasible and positioned high importance was what my team implemented first.
Journey Map
On our journey map we broke it into 3 parts starting with the goals and the user's scenario. Next, we wrote out Jane's experience while interacting with the ComfortCare application. Lastly, we orchestrated the possible avenues that our application can go.
Prototyping and Designing
Lo-Fi Iterations
Make the mission clear on the homepage. “I thought the app was about self care”
Clarify verbiage in nav “What is MP? Also it says tools here and resources in the title”
Make naming consistent “I only thought tools as in like, scalpel. Resources makes more sense”
Make the font larger. “The text is a little blurry and too small on connect.”
Mid-Fi Iterations
Have a better hierarchy on the homepage
"There's a lot going"
Bring more focus to the most important features. “Checklist is emphasized but I didn’t even use it.”
Add notifications to alert the user to messages. “Is there a way to see recent replies.”
Build more trust.
“I hope people don’t self diagnose with these articles.”
Style Tile
To lay the ground work for our Hi Fi prototype we compiled our style tile. The color palette is calm and inviting with imagery inspired by the daily tasks and rituals of caregivers along with the aspirational imagery for the self care they desire. We wanted our graphic patterns to be cheerful, hopeful and relatable.
Hi-Fi
Once we made our final iterations we produced the Hi-Fi prototype with a more streamlined homepage that provides easy access and clear direction to our most important resources. Then once we added our chosen colors, typography, and animations our HI-FI came alive.
Conclusion
Overall
In our first meeting that we each had a diverse set of skills and were eager to utilize them for this project. From past experiences, we found it critical that communication be at the forefront of our entire design process.
Once the idea of creating an app that tailored toward the mental, physical and emotional needs of palliative caregivers came to fruition, we spent ⅔ of the rest of our time as a team defining, prototyping and iterating our initial idea. Our overall goal was to ensure that this product would alleviate stress in a caregiver’s life, and not add to that stress.
From this process, we learned valuable, empathic information as a team. We iterated each round with our users in mind, to ensure that there would be cohesiveness throughout the user’s journey.
In the Future
As a team we would love to expand the scope of our application to meet the needs of issues like:
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Providing services for end of life care
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Incorporate legal and financial planning
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Respite care
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“In Memory Of" donation section