A React-based app aimed to revolutionise the UK's care system, empowering individuals and families to manage affordable care, share appointments and medical information in a safe, private environment.
Role & Context
As Principal Designer at RaVe, I led the design effort for HiCarer, advising on branding, running user story mapping sessions, and developing the product's visual language and interaction patterns.
Problem Statement & Research
Loneliness among older adults is a critical health issue, with traditional care systems often failing to provide meaningful social connections and coordinated care.
We sought to create a platform allowing family, friends and professionals to coordinate care tasks, communicate effectively, and maintain awareness of schedules, appointments, health conditions and progression.
Our research examined methods for managing support circles, securely sharing medical information, and creating a safe marketplace for care services. We explored early AI applications to suggest tailored care plans based on user input and established care models.
Safeguarding was paramount—we studied regulatory guidelines and tools to ensure both vulnerable clients and carers remained protected throughout the process.
Design Process
Through collaborative user story mapping sessions with stakeholders, we identified core needs and prioritised features for an MVP while planning future enhancements.
A freemium model emerged with paid plans for "Care Circles"—groups of connected users with various permissions and responsibilities. The platform needed to serve three distinct user types: care recipients, paid carers, and circle members, while facilitating care coordination and optional marketplace functionality.
User Flows & Information Architecture
A key challenge was designing a dual-sided marketplace similar to platforms like Fiverr, but specialised for care services. Users needed clear pathways to register as either care providers or clients (or eventually both).
We developed parallel user flows identifying touchpoints, mutual notifications, and approval processes to ensure smooth interactions between different user types.
Wireframing: Progressive Disclosure Forms
One of my significant contributions was designing progressive disclosure forms, both for Profile Settings and a richer Care Needs Assessment (CNA), using branching logic to present only relevant questions based on previous answers. This aimed to reduce cognitive load, while gathering only the relevant information for healthcare professionals, or financial support applications.
Left, landing page would provide regular, gentle reminders to progressively complete the CNA. Right, the form adapts to users' answers, asking only what's needed.
These forms required constant iteration and refinement whilst on a fast-paced agency work, so Figma wasn't the ideal platform for prototyping them beyond a few representative screens to define visual language and Interaction x (radials, checkboxes, progress indicators, visual hierarchy through indentation and colour coding), we developed HTML-based prototypes, easily updating JSON files as the question dependencies evolved.
Visual Design
Accessibility guided our visual design decisions. We selected Atkinson Hyperlegible font and high-contrast colour combinations to assist users with reduced vision.
I created a set of friendly, iconic illustrations and characters that became integral to the brand identity and were particularly well-received by stakeholders. This was to add warmth to what can be a stressful caregiving situation. (I'll cover this soon enough in a blog post).
Prototyping & User Testing
We conducted observational testing sessions with representatives from Carer Associations, experienced nurses, and potential clients. Participants attempted to complete key tasks without assistance while we documented their interactions.
The visual tone was praised for being friendly and approachable without feeling patronising. Testing revealed opportunities to refine task prioritisation, particularly regarding the sequence of completing the Care Needs Assessment versus building support circles.
Outcomes & Learnings
The project successfully delivered a thoroughly tested prototype ready for development. While I transitioned from the company before full public deployment, the design system, user flows, and visual language established during my tenure provided a solid foundation for the engineering team to build upon.
Key learnings included the importance of balancing technical sophistication with accessibility, particularly for users with varying digital literacy. The progressive disclosure forms proved especially valuable for simplifying complex information gathering, a pattern applicable across many healthcare applications.