Heroes
A Sidekick to Family Caregiving Heroes
Overview
Family caregivers face emotional, physical, and financial challenges while balancing personal and professional responsibilities. Hero alleviates this burden with a privacy-first, non-invasive monitoring system. Combining discreet in-home sensors, machine learning, and LLMs, Hero detects anomalies, monitors daily routines, and identifies early signs of health decline. By empowering caregivers with timely insights and promoting senior independence, Hero fosters well-being for both caregivers and their loved ones.
Role
Project Manager
UX Research Lead
Task
Project Planning
User Research
Data Analysis
Ideation
UI Strategy
Tools
Figma
Blender
Photoshop
Duration
6 Weeks,
Fall 2024
Team
Leah Choi
UX Design Lead
Jeanette Ahn
Impact Lead
Ellen Lee
Product Design Lead
Outcome
Background Context
The aging population in family caregiving presents growing challenges, with over 60% of caregivers reporting burnout due to time-intensive responsibilities and emotional strain. Many caregivers lack access to efficient, privacy-respecting tools for monitoring their loved ones, while seniors struggle to maintain independence.
Current solutions often rely on intrusive monitoring or lack features for proactive health management, leaving caregivers overwhelmed and seniors at risk. This project aims to address these gaps with a privacy-first approach, integrating advanced technologies to support both caregivers and seniors.
Problem Overview
Time-Intensive Caregiving: Caregivers spend an average of 26 hours per week providing care, often sacrificing personal and professional time.
Privacy Barriers: People expressed concerns about systems transmitting raw images or videos, emphasizing the need for secure, privacy-focused solutions.
Missed Health Insights: Without proactive tools, early signs of cognitive decline or health deterioration often go unnoticed.
Complex Systems: Current monitoring tools are either too difficult for seniors to use or add unnecessary stress to caregivers’ routines.
Proposed Solution
Hybrid Monitoring System: A combination of motion sensors, privacy-preserving cameras, and on-device data processing ensures comprehensive monitoring without compromising privacy.
Cost-Effective and Secure Data Analysis: Machine learning is used for efficient pattern recognition, while LLMs handle device communication and interactions.
Actionable Insights and Notifications: Caregivers receive real-time alerts and actionable insights through an intuitive app interface, helping them respond promptly to emergencies or health changes.
Personalized and Flexible Features: Voice commands for seniors, customizable subscription plans for caregivers, and shared caregiver logs foster ease of use and collaboration.
Design Process
Design Process
Over six weeks, we studied the challenges family caregivers face when caring for seniors with cognitive decline. We identified gaps in existing solutions and created Hero—a simple, non-invasive monitoring system designed to support caregivers and improve the lives of seniors.
Discover
User Research Take-away
We used a mixed-methods approach, combining secondary research, user interviews, and competitive analysis to gain a well-rounded understanding of the caregiving ecosystem.
1
70+ Secondary Research
Highlighted a growing number of caregivers facing time-intensive responsibilities and emotional burnout, with limited tools available to support them.
2
7+ Interviews
There is a need for solutions to preserve seniors’ independence, ease caregiver stress, and offer privacy-focused monitoring tools to reduce time demands.
3
4 Competitive Analysis
Uncovered gaps in existing systems, such as intrusive monitoring and the absence of cognitive tracking features.
Discover
Secondary Research
The unpaid family caregiving system faces increasing pressure, driven by a growing senior population. Many caregivers willingly shoulder this responsibility out of love and duty to ensure their loved ones' well-being. However, a review of 70+ academic articles, government reports, and caregiving publications reveals that caregiving demands are highly time-intensive, leading to significant physical and emotional burnout.
provide unpaid care, a number that has increased by 22% since 2015.
(CDC, 2024)
experience symptoms of burnout, such as physical and emotional exhaustion.
(AARP, 2023)
is spent on caregiving tasks, with 50.5% this time dedicated to supervision tasks.
(The Guardian Life, 2023)
Opportunity:
Caregivers face increasing demands, highlighting the urgent need for solutions that streamline tasks and reduce the time-intensive nature of caregiving, enabling them to focus on quality time and overall well-being.
Why It Matters:
These insights informed our focus on designing a solution that reduces caregivers' workload while respecting seniors’ independence and privacy.
Discover
User Interview
To gain a comprehensive understanding of the caregiving experience and the lived realities of seniors with dementia, we conducted 13 user interviews, each lasting 45 minutes. This included 7 in-depth interviews with seniors aged 70 and above, and 6 interviews with caregivers, comprising 4 family caregivers and 2 professionals.
Research Questions
Caregiver
What caregiving tasks take up most of your time or feel most challenging?
How do caregiving responsibilities affect your personal life, work, and emotional well-being?
What are your primary concerns regarding your loved one’s safety, health, and emotional comfort?
How do you currently track or monitor your loved one’s condition, and what challenges do you face in doing so?
What tools or systems would you find most helpful in alleviating caregiving demands?
What satisfies you most about providing care for your loved one?
Senior
Can you walk me through your day?
What daily activities or routines do you find most difficult or frustrating?
How do you currently communicate your health or safety needs with your family or caregivers?
Are you comfortable asking for help from caregivers?
How comfortable are you with adopting technology to assist with safety or health monitoring?
What concerns do you have about privacy or being monitored in your home?
Overall Takeaway
1.
Balancing Independence and Safety:
Both caregivers and seniors value autonomy, but ensuring safety without constant supervision remains a significant challenge.
2.
Proactive Health Concerns:
Early identification of health issues and emergencies is critical but often missed due to a lack of awareness or accessible tools.
3.
Strengthening Family Connection:
Caregiving is driven by love, but a lack of understanding and shared experiences among family members creates emotional distance.
4.
Technology Usability Barriers
Seniors often avoid technology due to usability challenges, while caregivers require intuitive tools that simplify caregiving tasks without adding to their workload.
Discover
Competitive Analysis
We analyzed five existing monitoring services, including both health and non-health platforms, to evaluate their effectiveness in addressing the challenges of caregiving for seniors while maintaining privacy and usability.
Key Insight:
Our analysis identified three main shortcomings: the lack of cognitive tracking features like speech analysis, intrusive monitoring methods compromising privacy, and insufficient caregiver collaboration tools.
Why It Matters:
These gaps inspired Hero’s focus on machine learning for speech analysis to proactively detect cognitive decline, non-intrusive monitoring with on-sensor data processing to preserve privacy, and flexible subscription models tailored to caregivers' diverse needs.
Problem Statement
Family caregiving is emotionally and time-consuming, leaving caregivers overwhelmed as they balance responsibilities while seniors strive to maintain independence. This often leads to caregiver burnout and unmet needs for seniors. By reducing the time-intensive nature of caregiving, we can improve quality of life and care for both groups.
Define
Define
Personas & Journey Mapping
Based on user interviews and affinity mapping, we crafted two personas: Maria Thompson, a devoted family caregiver, and her elderly father, Robert Thompson, the care recipient. These personas guide our design to address their unique needs and challenges.
User Pain Points
Uncovered through our research, these four key pain points became the center of our design decisions for user-centered solutions
1
Lack of Connection
Family caregiving is driven by love, but family members often struggle to understand each other's experiences.
2
Proactive Health Management
The lack of tools for early identification of health trigger events leads to preventable crises and missed opportunities for timely interventions.
3
Time-Intensive Supervision
Constant supervision for safety and handling emergencies consumes caregivers' time, leaving little room for personal needs or work.
4
Technology Barriers
Existing tools are often too complex for seniors with cognitive decline or add to caregivers’ workload, requiring accessible tech.
How might we...
reduce caregivers' workload through intuitive monitoring solutions that maintain seniors' sense of control?
enable proactive health management through early detection of health issues, reducing emergencies?
strengthen communication and collaboration among family members to share caregiving responsibilities?
Development
Our Solutions
Based on our user research and analysis, we've identified key design goals to address the needs of our users.
1
Simplifying Supervision
Ensures caregivers stay informed of seniors' status only when necessary, with privacy-respecting data instead of photos or videos.
2
Proactive Health Management
Analyzes speech patterns using LLM and machine learning to detect early cognitive decline, alerting caregivers for timely action.
3
Accessible Technology for All
Provide caregivers health data and insights for informed decisions, while enabling seniors to control the system through voice commands.
4
Connected Caregiving Space
Provide shared updates and communication logs, enabling caregivers and family members to stay aligned and support one another.
Design
Expert Feedback & Design Iteration
To enhance our project's design, we interviewed Professor Jiayu Zhou, an associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Information, renowned for applying machine learning to health informatics, particularly in early dementia detection through language markers. His insights helped us refine our methods, making them more effective and aligned with the latest advancements in technology for dementia detection.
Prof. Jiayu Zhou
Key Topics
1.
Machine Learning vs. Large Language Models (LLMs)
Machine learning is better for detecting speech patterns and cognitive issues because it’s task-specific, efficient, and cost-effective. In contrast, LLMs are designed for broader tasks like text generation.
2.
Enhanced Data Collection with Privacy-Preserving Cameras
Motion sensors alone may not provide enough data for comprehensive monitoring. Using cameras with on-device processing ensures richer datasets while protecting privacy, as data is analyzed locally and only essential insights are transmitted.
Impact on Design Decisions
Based on Prof. Zhou's advice, we made the following updates to our design.
Hybrid Use of LLMs and Machine Learning
Our initial plan to rely solely on LLMs evolved into using LLMs for device control and communication, while implementing machine learning for data collection and cognitive pattern detection.
Privacy-Preserving Cameras
We added cameras with on-device processing to improve data collection. All data is analyzed locally, ensuring privacy by transmitting only actionable insights, not raw images or videos.
Design
Information Architecture
The IA focuses on simplifying navigation and prioritizing key features for caregivers. It reflects user research by addressing their need for quick access to real-time alerts, health summaries, and collaboration tools. Seniors’ interaction is entirely voice-controlled, emphasizing ease and accessibility for non-tech-savvy users.
Design
Low-Fid
We developed mid-fidelity prototypes to refine Hero's core features, focusing on usability, intuitive navigation, and seamless integration of speech analysis and caregiver support tools.
Final Design
Introducing…
A noninvasive health monitoring
system for family caregivers
Here is how Heroes support family caregiving
Caring for loved ones is a journey of dedication and resilience. Our solution supports caregivers and seniors by addressing critical challenges like early health detection, privacy concerns, and the need for meaningful connection.
Here's how Hero Would look like in a house. Small, discreet sensors are placed throughout your loved one’s home. Each sensor monitors their environment, ensuring they navigate potential hazards, like stairs, safely, unexpected outings, or notifying you if they need assistance.
Data is captured through various sensors and processed locally, ensuring sensitive information, such as photos or videos, is never transmitted. The processed data is analyzed to generate health insights, which are delivered to caregivers through a mobile application for real-time updates and actionable recommendations. This privacy-first approach safeguards user control over their environment while minimizing risks of data misuse.
Hero’s system enables two-way communication, letting seniors easily connect with loved ones or caregivers via voice or messages. Family members can send encouraging notes, fostering emotional connection and reducing isolation with a simple, voice-assistant-like interface.
Solution
For Family Caregivers
Our application serves as the gateway to Hero's holistic monitoring system, providing caregivers with intuitive health data to easily understand current conditions, receive prompt alerts for critical situations, request assistance, or collaborate with fellow caregivers.
Real-Time Status Screen
The main screen uses a pop-out color-coded design for instant status updates and offers quick actions like contacting the senior or calling 911 in emergencies.
Health Reports
The Health Reports page visualizes data processed by LLMs and machine learning, presenting clear insights and recommendations for caregivers to understand and act on.
Connected Care
Enables caregivers and co-caregivers to access shared summaries for smooth communication and mutual support. The app fosters collaboration by allowing all caregivers to stay connected with the senior and one another.
Empowered Privacy
Hero gives users full control over their monitoring experience. Seniors can disable sensors with simple voice commands, while can customize settings. Flexible subscription models further tailored monitoring to suit their comfort.
Solution
Impact
By fostering collaboration among family members and offering intuitive, adaptable tools, our solution creates a seamless caregiving experience, allowing families to focus on what truly matters—safety, connection, and peace of mind.
Caregiver Relief
Reducing supervision time lets caregivers reclaim personal time and alleviate stress.
Safety & Independence
Real-time alerts help seniors stay independent with prompt emergency support.
Proactive Monitoring
Early detection enables timely care, improving seniors' health outcomes.
Reflection
Meet the Side Kicks
A team of dedicated hard workers fueled by late-night coffee and the love for good food. Together, we design with data, empathy, and a shared vision to build a better tomorrow.
Reflection & Takeaways
This project was a profound learning experience, offering valuable insights into tailoring research methodologies, managing team dynamics, and addressing the complexities of designing for dual user types.
Takeaways
1.
Tailored Research Methods:
Interviewing seniors with cognitive challenges required balancing open-ended questions for meaningful insights with specific prompts for clarity. Iterating on this process sharpened my user-centric research skills.
2.
Team Management:
Acting as a product manager emphasized the importance of clear communication, structured schedules, and fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration. Seeking feedback and guidance from professionals and teammates was crucial in aligning the team’s efforts and maintaining momentum.
3.
Empathy-Driven Design:
Understanding the overlapping but distinct needs of caregivers and seniors reinforced the significance of designing for both functional and emotional contexts. This included balancing autonomy and connection, privacy and safety, independence and support.