“The Ribbon” – An Application for Family Caregiving

Process: Prototype and Iterate

“The Ribbon” – An Application for Family Caregiving | Proteus Digital Health | 2012

The Need: Define a Complete Product

Family caregiving was identified as a strong potential market for Proteus. We aimed to define the product elements required to support this market, including product positioning and a tailored mobile app.

The Design: Focus on Answering a Family’s Questions

Our process for defining this system was heavily informed by user research. To create the app, we first brought “sacrificial concepts” out to families, and quickly learned that just displaying our data would not be effective. Numbers such as hours of sleep, resting heart rate, and step count were not meaningful nor did they answer the questions we heard: “Did mom take her meds this morning and make her usual sandwich at 2pm?”

We also listened to the people being cared for, who worried their loved ones would no longer call them with this system in place. By avoiding conversational features in the app, we designed the system to augment rather than replace existing communication channels. 

My Role: Head of Department

I defined our execution strategy, attending research, synthesis and brainstorms, and providing direction to the design teams. I articulated our strategy – design and positioning – and communicated it across the company, from engineers to the Board of Directors.

Initial app focused on displaying numerical data

Our family-caregiving application answers the questions families ask at-a-glance without confusing numerical data

The app automatically shares medication adherence, so daily phone calls can be about the things that matter a lot more