The Challenge
Every day, 10,000 people retire in the US. For most, this is a time of transition, full of uncertainty about what will happen to them over the next few years. For some, already dependent, this is a time of fear. How will I spend my last years? Will I be a burden for my family? Is there a place for me to still be happy?
Looking for senior care is a stressing, sometimes traumatic experience for seniors and their families. They are not looking for a facility. They are looking for a place where they will be happy, where they can face death proud of their last years.
Yet it's very hard to find senior housing and care options online, and the navigation of current websites is frustrating and time consuming.
The team wanted to solve this problem by creating a haven of education and browsing. We wanted to concentrate all the information about this process in one place, and we wanted to make the search of the right community as easy and fulfilling as possible.
To design a good experience around such an emotional event, we had to understand well the senior audience, its needs, motivations, pain points, and how they interact online given the generational gap in technology.
Audience
Demographics
Through initial business and user research, we identified the target audience: 40-65 year old women searching for Senior Housing.
One of the key insights was that the main target audience wasn't people looking for their own retirement, but rather their kids, looking for the right care for their parents.
Pain Points
Their main concern is that they feel bad when looking for senior housing for their parents because it's a hassle, and because they don't find results that are better than the care they feel obligated to provide them.
To guide the design in the right direction, we created the following positioning:
For 40-65 year old females looking for Senior Communities for their parents, Seniorly is the only resource where they can easily find the one that is as good or better than them. That's because, unlike other senior housing resources, Seniorly is the only one to have all the Senior Housing options categorized for personalized search, and a seamless web interface and concierge service to ease the process.
Information Architecture
To provide an intuitive navigation system for the marketplace, we analyzed the platform and site content, the functionality, and the different relationships between both. This diagram establishes the structure and hierarchies to inform the UX and UI.
Sketching Concepts
I began exploring solutions for the main action in the site: Search.
Search is the driver for the experience in the marketplace. It needed to be simple and intuitive, yet robust to support the multiple use cases and functionalities of the site.
The solution needed to accommodate a basic and advanced search with 3 elements: filters, available communities (map and list view), and map interactions (zoom in/out, and opening full listings from clicking profiles on the map).Solution 1
Reduced map view, with filters on the left:
Solution 2
Map, filter and results in one view, a la airbnb:
I repeated this process and created sketches for every screen in the user and provider dashboards.
Wireframes
After some iterations, we created the first wireframes. We annotated them to explain the value of the design to the client and to clearly explain our design decisions. See below two wireframes for the basic and advanced search results screens:
Final Mocks
After some iterations, I created the final mockups for the search results page and the user and provider dashboards.
Dashboard Design
This was one of the most complex parts of the project.
The dashboard had to support two very different types of users: seniors and communities. This brought a complex challenge: seniors needed a simple and intuitive UI, while communities needed a deep site with robust functionalities.
The dashboards have common features with:
- The same flows, like Messaging
- Different flows, like Tour Booking
- Specific features for each of them, like Family Portal for the senior dashboard, or Managing Communities for the provider dashboard.
Following the same process, I first created wireframes, flows and then mockups for each of the features. I included here a sample of mocks for both dashboards.
More Screens
1. PROVIDER DASHBOARD
Overview Page:
Provider Analytics:
Provider Communities:
Add New Community:
Manage Tours:
Tour Availability:
2. SENIOR DASHBOARD
Messaging:
Family Portal:
Saved Communities:
Ratings and Reviews:
Leaving a Review:
Upcoming Tours:
Onboarding User Information:
3. CONTENT PAGES
Homepage:
Listing Page:
Housing Type Page:
Education Center:
4. RESPONSIVE DESIGN
Next Steps
I started working with Seniorly when they were still a dream in the head of two cofounders. Since then, the team has kept growing along with the product, and the first customers have trusted them to find where to spend their last years.
The work presented here belongs to Phase I of the project. I am currently working on Phase II, which includes testing, but also creating new features and UI for new pages.
A Senior Care & Housing Marketplace
Seniorly aims to connect seniors and their families with all the housing and care options available. Through its platform, seniors can explore all the communities in their area, contact them, schedule tours, and get all the family members involved during the process.
I’ve worked as product designer along with a UI designer and Seniorly's business and development teams. I led the process end-to-end, focusing on the UX and interaction design. I also created the UI for user and provider dashboards.
