Five Good Friends is an in-home care service provider that is backed by technology and a unique platform that matches ideal Helpers to Members.

I joined the team when the business realised they needed a designer to be able to champion the product and lead the brand through a more consistent journey. Over the past 7 months I’ve spent my time workshopping, redesigning, performing ethnographic research and interviewing users.

Role

Lead UI/UX Designer in a Product Team made up of a Product Manager and 3 Engineers.

Challenge

How do you use technology to help seniors age longer in their homes and give their loved ones peace of mind that they are being looked after? 

Process and Approach

Use technology to aid Carers, Members and their families. Our team finds problems and then we find solutions to fix those problems.

The app allows Carers to see their upcoming and past schedule, check in/out of their visits, add/edit their visits and view their account. When the app is in the Member's hand they are able to see their upcoming visits, what service will be provided and who their Carer will be. This is especially useful for family members who are concerned about their loved ones and are able to have peace of mind by seeing who is in their families home and when.

Research and Interviews

Along-side our Product Manager we use the Jobs To Be Done framework to interview all 3 types of our users (Carers, Members and the Member’s family). We tag team these 30min interview-style phone calls in order to learn more about the people using our product and to flag pain points and habits in order to decide what is most important for the team to work on.

Design Systems

When I joined the product team there was no designer and an outside agency had created a loose style guide that no one was using. One of the first tasks I assigned to myself was to run an Interface Inventory with every person in the company that touches the product (including CEOs) so they could see the patterns of visual inconsistencies in the product and become advocates for a consistent design system.

Once everyone was onboard I took to the tools and started to find ways to design a sustainable design system that worked well between design and development and that would be easy to use for any new designer coming into the team.