Tres Creates | UI/UX Portfolio

MEMORY MAKER

MEMORY

MAKER

App Design - Group Project

Completed: April 2024

Timeline: 12 weeks

Problem:

Alzheimer’s disease brings on heavy burdens for patients and their caretakers alike. From the gradual depletion of precious memories, knowledge, and health for patients. To tedious and sometimes overwhelming care that family members have to take on for their loved ones. These main trials were what motivated my classmate and I, to address the need for a platform that allowed for all and any memories and health information to be kept. As well as, resources and support for caretakers who are taking on the care for their loved one alone.

Main Objectives:

Centered on the focal needs of Alzheimer’s patients and their caretakers.

Be an aid in providing memory preservation, cognitive development, and mental stimulation for patients.

Engaging and easy-to-use interface for the unique needs of any patient and caretaker.

Simplify the daily workload and tasks for caretakers, including a place to find support and resources.

Centered on the focal needs of Alzheimer’s patients and their caretakers.

Be an aid in providing memory preservation, cognitive development, and mental stimulation for patients.

Engaging and easy-to-use interface for the unique needs of any patient and caretaker.

Simplify the daily workload and tasks for caretakers, including a place to find support and resources.

My Role:

Researcher

Designer

User Tester

Tools Used:

Figma

Audience:

Alzheimer’s Patients: Individuals between the ages of 60-80 years old, whose use of technology is low to moderate. My classmate and I knew we needed to create an interface that was simple, yet effective in allowing these individuals the independence to operate the app.

Caretakers: Individuals between the ages of 25 and 40 years old, whose use of technology is moderate to high proficiency. Including the functionality and appearance of modern apps and interfaces would ease the stress of having to learn yet “another app”.

DESIGN PROCESS!

DESIGN

PROCESS!

Research

We started to brainstorm, plan out, and create user personas to be our guide to understand the needs of our users.

Empathize

We took a moment to understand what challenges could be faced by our users, and how to approach them with care.

Design

With all our research in place, we developed style tiles, process flows, and wireframes to ensure accessibility needs are met.

Implement

We designed and prototyped a functional, yet intuitive app that tailored to specific interactions for our users.

Evaluate

Through user-testing, we were able to gain crucial feedback, from our peers, for the interface and prototype interactions.

VIEW RESEARCH

Blueprint:

When we were tackling on this project, we went ahead and divided up the work in half. My classmate and I worked on creating user personas to understand the patients and their caretakers needs. Afterwards, we went ahead and designed style tiles that incorporated colors and aesthetic that established the sense of calm and tranquility.

Having our visuals allowed us to moved forward with our process flows on how we need to design the app’s interfaces, and build out the prototypes for a seamless user experience. One example, is that caretakers can keep track of the daily statistical activities of their patients, a feature that is not present in the patient interface. Then, came the wireframes that gave us the direction we need to follow to start implementing our designs.

Research:

We looked into the science behind the impacts of various colors, and why select brands, advertisements, and interfaces use certain colors for their audiences. This aided us in choosing a color palette that is easy on the eyes, and followed the pattern of serenity and tranquility. Looking at the competitors existing solutions, we realized they cluttered their interfaces with information that is overwhelming for all parties involved.

As well as, tools that incorporated games and resources that help patients to gain some of their independence, during this troubling time in their life, that was lacking from some of these interfaces. Also, tools that didn’t have a place separate for caretakers to find solace for themselves.

Design:

Now, for the design of the app, we focused on greatly on the aesthetic and feel of the interface that would calm any patient that utilized the app. We chose the color Pink as our primary color due to the soothing, and peaceful feel it brings. We used various hues and tones of pink throughout the design to not make the color not burn through the screen, but keeping as much whitespace as we could.

Using colors like green, blues, and light orange complimented the pink greatly. We used rounded corners in our borders, bold icons, and minimalistic elements to not crowd the interface, and keep each screen simple. My partner even incorporated the designs seen in “lava lamps” to decorate the edges of the screens, and add on to the soothing nature of the interface.

Constraints:

Our main constraint with this app was our inaccessibility to get in touch with actual Alzheimer’s patients and caretakers. I knew a few friends who work in the medical field, but aren’t always caring for Alzheimer’s patients. The few times these individuals are, they would describe these moments as emotional and precious, due to the fact they are caring for patients who are in the final days of their life. As a result, we could not, and wouldn’t be appropriate, to test our prototype with these patients now with their caretakers.

We had to rely on experiences shared through blogs, online literature, and secondary sources that don’t truly capture the intensity, emotions, needs, and preferences of the users. This constraint challenged us to be more considerate in our design decisions, and use the feedback we receive to improve.

Challenges:

This project had quite a few challenges, but the main one would have to be the thought and care that went into the interfaces for the caretakers and patients. Caretakers had more specific and complex interfaces as they would be responsible for inputing and managing the medications, schedules, and keeping track of daily, weekly, and monthly statistics of activities that their patients are partaking in for progress development. Whereas, patients needed to be more simplistic, but sync with the interface of their caretaker’s. Both users needed their own planning and research into how their user flow would function.

Overall Outcome:

I am grateful to have worked alongside my talented classmate, who helped push me to improve and grow in various aspects of research, planning, and designing with empathy being the central motivator. We designed a user-friendly app that reached our goal of designing an app for Alzheimer’s patients and their caretakers. We touched base on several challenges faced by both parties, and how we can combat those challenges with an intuitive interface. I would love to elaborate on this project with addressing various other accessibility needs, and improving on the interactivity for different user flows.

Challenges:

This project had quite a few challenges, but the main one would have to be the thought and care that went into the interfaces for the caretakers and patients. Caretakers had more specific, and complex interfaces as they would be responsible for inputing and managing the medications, schedules, and keeping track of daily, weekly, and monthly statistics of activities that their patients are partaking in for progress development. Whereas, patients needed to be more simplistic, but sync with the interface of their caretaker’s. Both users needed their own planning and research into how their user flow would function.

Overall Outcome:

MY RESUME