Aether

Streamlining paperwork for caregivers to reduce administrative burnout and improve efficiency.

Overview

AI powered support for caregivers

Aether is an app created to help caregivers with paperwork. At its core, it uses AI to Simplify, Summarize, and Streamline paperwork to reduce burnout and save time to allow caregivers to focus on what matters most, providing high quality care to seniors.

Year

September 2024 – December 2024

Role

Designer, Developer, Marketer, Researcher

Skills

Figma, Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Expo, React, UX/UI Design, Graphic Design, Typography, Photo editing, Research

The problem currently

Caregivers lose up to 30 days in a year due to filling out paperwork for seniors.

Caregivers face significant challenges with repetitive, stressful, and time-consuming paperwork which affects their ability to focus on providing quality care to seniors. This task can be done more effeciently, yet caregivers are still struggling with it due to ineffecient tools. By making paperwork more efficient, it enhances the caregiver experience by reducing stress and freeing up time but also directly improves senior care outcomes, allowing caregivers to focus on what matters most, providing compassing and support for seniors

The solution

Aether, an AI powered app to help caregivers witth paperwork.

To address caregivers' paperwork challenges, the app Aether was developed. It is an app that combines intuitive UX/UI design with AI technology to streamline paperwork. Using Optical Image Recognition and GPT-4, it simplifies complex paperwork in clear and easy-to-understand language. It also enables autofill with stored information in the app. The app's design minimizes cognitive load, saving time and reducing burnout, so caregivers can focus on providing high quality care.

When talking to caregivers

It turns outs caregivers really struggle with paperwork, they find it tedious and time-consuming.

The 3 pain points caregivers faced and focused the design around it. Caregivers found paperwork:

Caregivers often found complex wording and legal jargon difficult to understand, making it hard for them to fill out paperwork.
Many forms required the same type of information being filled out repetitively, making the process time consuming. A single page for takes on average 7 minutes to fill out.
The sheer amount of forms they had to fill out and submit was stressful causing caregivers to feel burntout.

Creating real-life insights

Caregivers spoke and their voices led the way.

Based on the research, two user personas were created based on real-life interviews and online research:

The primary persona is of a full-time senior home caregiver
The secondary persona is an office worker who is the caregiver of his mother at home

By creating these personas, the needs of the caregiver can be understood to ensure the product is designed for ease of use and to reduce the learning curve.

Competitive analysis

Spotting an opportunity in a competitive market.

Currently, there are apps that offer similar features. However, an opportunity to focus on a specific audience, caregivers, was identified. While existing tools provided basic functionality, the goal was to design an app that was not only intuitive but also aligned with the specific needs of caregivers. The focus centered on crafting a user experience that felt thoughtful and seamless for those who use it.

The competitor analysis found that many apps on the market can help simplify complex language and jargon. However, those apps did not allow their users to directly edit and input information into the paperwork. Additionally, the apps did not have a very intuitive interface. The one that did have a simple and intuitive interface was lacking in functionality and missing several key features.

User Flow

From start to finish with no roadbumps.

The user flow is designed to guide caregivers through a seamless and intuitive process. By simplifying tasks like uploading files, filling out forms, and reviewing information, this flow can help caregivers efficiently handle paperwork.

Low Fidelity Wireframes

Designing around usability and accessbility.

After completing the research and identifying the key pain points and needs for caregivers, it became clear the app must be centered around its usability and accessibility. Caregivers often work under high levels of stress and time constraints, so the app needed to be intuitive, easy-to-navigate, and inclusive to users with different levels of technical literacy.

Mid Fidelity Wireframes

Building upon the accessibility and layout of the app.

The feedback on the low fidelity wireframes were positive and caregivers thought the design was intuitive to use. With that, the mid fidelity wireframes began. The focus was on adding content to it while keeping the layout the same.

The decision was made to preserve the original layout in the low fidelity wireframe for several reseaons:

Consistencty: The layout was designed to prioritize accessibility and ease of use, so keeping it consistent ensured that caregivers could navigate the app easily.
Focus on content: By keeping the layout unchanged it allows for a focus on adding more detailed content such as input fields, overlays, and icons.
Visual heiarchy: Using typography, spacing, and visual elements, we created a clear hierarchy of information. This ensured that the most important features and content were the focus, making the app easier to navigate.

Visual Design System

Defining colours and typography for trust, reliability, and calmness.

With the completion and testing of the mid fidelity wireframes, the visual design of the app started. The goal of the design choices is to provide a sense of trust, reliability, and calmness. With that, the colour palette and font choice was chosen

#F2F2F7 a soft colour to ensure clarity
#137FA5 and a gradient of #71AFCE to #5B8399 to promote a calming yet professional aesthetic
DM sans being a sans-serif fot with soft rounded edges has high readblity and balanced proportions, making it ideal for the app.

Initial High Fidelity Wireframes

Implementing visual design but falling short.

The intial version of the high fidelity wireframe and prototype incorporated the colour palette and typography. This version included detailed visuals, such as colors, typography, icons, and interactive elements, to create the look for the final product.

After testing:

Accessibility fell short: 60% of caregivers found that the text colour and background colour were too similair and made it hard to read.
Visuals felt too outdated: Other designers that looked at the app felt like it looked too outdated.

This iteration of the app served as a testing ground. The next iteration of the app was designed with the feedback in mind.

Final High Fidelity Wireframes

Iterating and learning from mistakes.

After taking in the feedback from the intial high fidelity wireframes, improvements were made. For the final design, the decision to have a lighter background and more contrasting buttons made the app more accesible. Adjustments to the pages of the app made it look more modern while keeping the accessibility and user-centric design in mind.

The final results:

A/B testing: Caregivers found the app much more accessible on the new iteration. Complaints about readability fell from 60% to 10%.
Designer feedback: Designers thought the new iteration was much more pleasing to the eye and the accessbility and usability were still at the forefront of the design.

After using the app

Time to complete paperwork fell from 7 minutes to 4 minutes.

Without the Aether, the average time to fill out paperwork was 7 minutes for a single page. After having caregivers and many other users use the app, time to fill out a single page of paperwork fell to 4 minutes, a drop of ~42%. Users particularly liked the paraphrasing feature of the app which simplifies complex wording making it easier to understand what information is required.
By cutting down on time spent on paperwork, Aether empowers caregivers to work more efficiently, ultimately reducing burnout and allowing them to focus on what matters most, high quality caregiving.

Test out the Prototype

Give the prototype a try!

Final Thoughts and Reflection

Key Learnings:

User-centric design is essential: The feedback from user testing highlighted the importance of designing with the end-user in mind. Their feedback and insights were what shaped the app into something that addresses the caregivers needs.
Accessibility matters: Ensuring the app was accesible and easy to navigate was curcial. The adjustments made on user feedback significantly improved user experience.
Balancing aesthetic and Functionality: While designing an eye pleasing app was important, it was equally as important maintian the functionality and accessiblity of the app.

Areas for Improvement:

Expand user testing: Conducting more extensive user testing with a more diverse group of caregivers could uncover additional pain points.
Microinteractions: Incorporating some sublte microinteractions can make the app feel more responsive and engaging.

Reflection:

My time working on Aether was a great experience that allowed me to grow as a designer, developer, and marketer. I gained valuable insights into cross-functional collaboration with multiple teams, navigating challenges, and designing and developing a successful product. While the development of the app was successful, it was not without and setbacks.

Effective communication is important when it come to fostering a collaborative environment.
Adaptability is essential, as projects often evolve and flexibility is required in order to adjust for the obstacles.
Desgin is an interative process, and adjustments are a natural part of refining and developing a good user experience
Having fun in the creative process is just as important as achieving the end result.

These takeaways have not only helped me hone my skills as a designer and team member, it also let me experience and show my appreciation for product development.