MY ROLE: Lead researcher and Designer—solely responsible for all content
TIMELINE: 2 months
CLIENT: Ruby, a B2C startup
Background
Ruby was struggling to find product/market fit for their primary product — a tool to help families collaborate on finances and important documents. They had been broadly focused on an audience of people with aging parents and wanted to try a more narrow, targeted approach.
The idea arose that families caring for a loved one with dementia might be a prime target audience. Individuals with dementia become increasingly prone to financial mistakes and sadly, scams. The more involved family members can be in overseeing a loved one’s finances, the more they can protect them and their financial future.
The Challenge
My goal was to understand the financial planning needs of both people living with dementia and their family members. Building upon what was learned, I was asked to recommend opportunities for how Ruby’s product might better meet those needs. Furthermore, I was to help the team understand and empathize with this potential target audience through personas and journey maps.
The Outcome
Dementia is a devastating disease that affects lives in far-reaching ways. People are forced to make hard decisions amidst the turmoil of navigating a new unknown. There is definite need for products that ease the enormous stress of this experience. My research made clear that Ruby is well-positioned to do so.
KEY FINDING: people in this situation need a holistic view of what to expect
MY SOLUTION: a crowd-sourced timeline to help prepare for what’s to come
KEY FINDING: a major source of anxiety was not knowing how to prepare financially
MY SOLUTION: a budgeting tool to help anticipate the costs of care options.
I also defined personas, created journey maps , and made recommendations for how Ruby might best meet the needs of this potential target audience.
I also defined personas, created journey maps, and made recommendations for how Ruby might best meet the needs of this potential target audience.
RESEARCH + DISCOVERY
Of course, the first step was to create a research plan outlining the goals, methodologies, and timeline of the project.
Evaluation plan
In order to make sure I was asking the right questions I created an evaluation plan. If spreadsheets are your thing, you can view the plan in it's entirety.
Stakeholder Interviews
Talking to the team helped me better understand the insight that they hoped the project would uncover. I conducted interviews with four key stakeholders and synthesized my findings.
SME Interviews
I interviewed three individuals involved with organizations which help connect people with resources for dementia care. I distilled what I learned into a journey map.
Key takeaways
“Often it’s the financial decisions and mistakes that start be a clue that cognition is impaired.”
Quantitative Research
I conducted a survey of both people who are actively managing the finances for a loved one with dementia and those who are not.
KEY FINDINGS
Direct Interviews
In order to better understand the challenges of this target audience through the specific lens of finances, I interviewed people on either side of the issue — those who have taken over managing finances of a loved one with dementia and those who’ve not yet taken that step.
KEY pain points
Role reversal. This experience brings with it the struggle of a change in role from partner or child to caregiver. Participants felt particularly conflicted about role reversal when it comes to money.
The financial unknown. Several people mentioned how not knowing what to budget for added a great deal of stress to the situation.
“We had it budgeted out but we don’t have a crystal ball to know how long he’s going to live so the financial side is just a constant worry.”
Newfound responsibility. From transportation, to ensuring medicines were taken, to taking on the care of their loved one's hygiene, food, and home, people's lives are drastically changed.
A series of individual battles. Participants expressed that new problems to solve and decisions to make, arrived piecemeal. This added a huge layer of frustration to an already stressful time.
“Everything was one problem at a time as they came up. Boy, would that have been nice if everything had been all laid out at once.”
Key takeaways
Product Assessment
Following the interviews, I showed participants screenshots of the product to elicit feedback on features.
KEY FINDINGS
Overall, the participants were excited about the tool. The standout features were alerts, the Vault (collaborative document storage), and the ability to set limits on withdrawals.
“Any safeguards you can add to limit withdrawal is incredibly important. My dad withdrew $6000 and we have no idea what happened to it.”
SYNTHESIS + DEFINING
Uncovering Insights + Identifying Needs
I used an affinity map to identify patterns in the observations and statements collected from the research conducted thus far.
Defining the Design Challenge
Using the affinity map helped me to identify the key needs to be addressed. I translated these needs into insights, then reframed them as How Might We questions.
Personas
Using all that I learned from the SMEs, the qualitative and quantitative research, I created a variable map to define four different archetypes of the target audience.
Journey Maps
Next I created journey maps for each of the four personas. I defined the phases they encounter as well as their emotions, pain points, and actions.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Ruby is a tool that could truly help those navigating this difficult experience. The challenge then, is how to connect with this group — overwhelmed and looking for answers—to Ruby at the right time. Incorporating features that meet their key needs could serve as a bridge for those looking for guidance and then finding Ruby.
Furthermore, we learned that Ruby would be most valuable to those who have not yet put a plan in place, those in a sort of holding pattern, waiting for an incident to inspire action. It needs to be communicated that stepping in to help manage finances should happen as soon as possible. What helps people take action is information specific to their situation.
Help start the conversation
Provide guidance about how to have the difficult conversations around the shifting of financial management roles due to dementia.
CRowdsourced TIMELINE
Collect data about key points in the experience of a navigating a dementia diagnosis. This could then be aggregated and displayed on a timeline. A user would have a sense of what’s to come and therefore how to plan for it.
budgeting tool
Give a user the tools to anticipate the costs of care options and how to budget for them. The tool could give estimates of local care facilities as well as identifying expenses the user might not have considered.
adaptability
As the disease progresses, roles change. Help make the transition gradual by allowing family members to customize access and set limits for an individual with dementia as needed.
help simplify the complicated
A major pain point for people was understanding all of the legal, medical, insurance, and tax issues that arise. Incorporate guidance and clarity for what they are likely to encounter.
paper statements
Individuals with dementia are typically of the age demographic to expect financial statements on paper. Help build trust and make it an easier transition for them by providing that option.
customizability
Build more customizability into the product. For example, enable the ability to create one’s own categories for expenses.
checklists
Something as simple as an overview of what to expect and a checklist of actions to take could be very valuable to those actively seeking guidance.
FINAL TAKEAWAYS
This project was particularly challenging due to the incredibly emotional subject of dementia. I was humbled by participants’ willingness to be vulnerable in sharing their stories. Given a glimpse into how difficult caring for a loved one with dementia can be, I felt very motivated in building a product to help.
I look forward to more opportunities to make lives a little easier through design.