COLAB7 - MOBILE APP

Loved Ones

Helping fight elderly loneliness by nurturing relationships.

Background

Elderly loneliness has been a long-standing issue that has almost become a norm associated with old age and a phase of life that has become less appealing to many as they age by the day.

According to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, 43% of older adults feel lonely, with a 45% increased mortality rate and damaging effect equalizing smoking 15 cigarettes daily.

Many of the older adults live alone as their loved ones have transitioned unto other phases of life. As younger adults, life has happened/is happening to many, and unintentionally, we forget to connect with our parents or grandparents. While we love them and would cross oceans to be with them, we’re unable to be their companion as we’re accountable in other areas of our lives, and so we tend to forget as we juggle through life to achieve our own goals. LovedOnes provides a convenient way to schedule calls and receive notifications to connect with your elderly ones.


User Pain Points

We deduced from our user research and interviews that all respondents had elderly ones and had concerns about the quality of their relationships. 85% of users stated they do not connect regularly with their elderly ones due to a busy schedule. All users agreed that the quality of their relationships is directly proportional to the frequency of communication, and it could use some improvement. 

Lastly, they all honestly stated their greatest fear was losing an elderly one who was lonely prior to passing on. They all desired to connect more frequently but struggle with availability and timing.

Landing on the Solution 

The intent was to create an app that would help nurture relationships by helping younger adults create a schedule to remember to connect with their elderly ones at their preferred frequency, which overtime should improve the quality of their relationships. Research has shown that social relationships are pivotal to curb loneliness/depression, and LovedOnes is here to help do just that.

The Solution

LovesOnes is an application where users can schedule calls in order to create consistent communication with their elderly ones.

LovedOnes is intended to allow users create time for their elderly ones despite their busy schedules by providing them with key features such as:

  1. A calendar to schedule calls.
  2. Connect the calendar with their contacts lists.
  3. An optional life calendar to calculate an estimated life expectancy.
  4. Determine frequency of notification reminders.

Design 

Next Steps

We will continue developing the MVP for soft release and move on from there.

Learnings

Product Manager Learnings:

Omotola Folarin-Ottun

  • Gained knowledge on developing product spec, conducting user interviews and utilizing Agile best practices. Learned efficient collaboration with the designer and developer to drive product success.

Designer Learnings:

Chris Calletta

  • Learned that no matter how good you think you are at communication, you could/should always improve. And that given the sensitive nature of this app, attained a deeper understanding and knowledge in the craft of UX writing.

Developer Learnings:

Aidan Torrence

  • Learned how to collaborate as a solo developer on a product team. And gained valuable insights on how to prioritize features to develop.

Developers Learnings:

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Full Team Learning

We all learned a lot more about collaboration and communication in bringing an app to life from start to finish.