Abueliving

A website solution to help promote the Fundacion Roure’s intergenerational living program in Barcelona.

How do we build intergenerational communities

Building communities that bring together young and elderly people have been shown to have positive effects on both generations. With intergenerational co-living the Fundacion Roure in Barcelona created a program that worked with psychologists, colleges and elderly people to match college students in need of housing with an elderly counterpart.

Abueliving created a platform to digitize the current system for the foundation, but in order to get buy in from the Foundation, they needed to first help solve the problem that they were having.

My Contributions

User Research, User Interface, User Experience, Prototyping

My Role

UX Designer

Platform Details

Website

The Team

Finn Pauls
Coral Pereda

Project Status

On hold due to COVID-19

Project Type

Freelance Contract

The Problem

Family members of the elderly need a way to help connect their aging relatives to helpful room mates.

The Challenge
Although Fundacion Roure’s intergenerational living program has been successful in providing matches between the elderly and students, the amount of students in search of housing far outweighs the amount of elderly.

They needed our team to create a tool that would help them increase their pool of elderly people looking for a housemate.

The Opportunity
To understand what the target market would be in order to increase the number of elderly people in the Fundacion Roure’s program and to create a platform that helped showcase the benefits of intergenerational housing.

Insight into Caregivers

Problem Deep Discovery

User Interviews

Survey

After learning about what our client and their investors understood about their target market, we set out to discover what types of pain points the users might encounter with intergenerational living.

We created a survey capturing responses from 50 different people to learn more about how caregivers felt about the well being of their loved one with younger people. We also interviewed 5 caregivers to hear what their experiences have been like.

Survey Findings

72%

Thought it would be difficult to convince their relative to live with someone else

Insight:
This highlighted one of the pain points that people were having

68%

Would be willing to have someone live with their aging relative

Insight:
This showed that there was a need for the program that the Foundation had

54%

Didn’t know that programs for intergenerational living existed

Insight:
This gave us insight into the gap in the market and what we could create

84%

Valued Trustworthiness in people who would live with their relative

Insight:
This highlighted what needed to be an integral part of our product.

Interview Insights

"I’m afraid that they might take advantage of my mother’s physical and mental problems for his/her own benefit"
- A.R. (Relative)

"Would they take care of the space? How would they react in a crisis situation"
- D.F. (Relative)

"My mother is incredibly stubborn. I don’t think she would ever accept a stranger in her home"
- F.R. (Relative)

Defining the Problem

Problem Statement

From our interview and research we were able to establish a commonality between the surveys, our clients concerns and our interviews. This commonality revolved around establishing trust and showing the benefits of co-living.

Problem Statement:

Family members of the elderly need a way to connect their aging relatives with younger trustworthy students so that they feel less alone.

What will it be?

Feature Analysis

Feature Prioritization

Comparative Research

Although there are many programs that allow people to search for intergenerational housing, but none of them acknowledge that there may be difficulty in convincing the elderly of the benefits to co-living.

Intergenerational Housing websites

We compared what each website geared towards intergenerational housing and found a gap in the market where we could succeed.

Next, we started to prioritize with our stakeholders what we MUST, what SHOULD, what COULD and what WONT be in the MVP for Abueliving’s website.

Must Have:

Testimonials about the existing programs
Explaining the process of the program
Sign up form for elderly & general contact form and contact information
Benefits of co-habitation

Should Have:

Show where the program(s) are active
Who is applicable for the program?
How to talk about your grandparents about the program
How is the vetting done?

Could Have:

How the match happens
Information on what the work trade is
Participating programs and donors
Examples of Case Studies
Download page with print materials

Defining the Style Guide

Design & Implementation

Design Research

UI Patterns

We wanted the app to appeal to our target audience. Our goal was to gain their trust and inspire confidence. We chose pastel colors because in our research those are the colors that tested well.

Design Iterations

Before we settled on the final design, we worked to refine the original prototype through multiple style and copy iterations in order to come to the final product.

Where are the issues?

Testing the Prototype

Usability Testing

Prototyping

Through testing, we were able to gather insight into what real users thought about our work and make changes based on feedback

Clarifying Text

“I don’t get it, do they go to different places?”

Insight:
Tester was unsure about the multiple different CTAs and where they would bring you

Change Made:
We changed the titles and CTAs to better connect the idea of choosing who you are and what you are looking to get information on

Simplifying the Mission Statement

“I just want to know what the program is, I don’t want to read a lot”

Insight:
Text was overwhelming to read and CTA was too specific

Change Made:
We changed the CTA to be a bit more all encompassing and optimized the mission statement

Adding Context

"What will happen when I give my information to these people?”

Insight:
Users were not given an idea of what they were signing up for

Change Made:
Added additional information about what would happen once they signed up