MiREN LOPEZ
SyncFam
Centralizing shared information for multiple caregivers
CLIENT
SyncFam
TIMELINE
5 months
TOOLS
Figma & Photoshop
YEAR
2024
context
According to the WHO, 10 million new dementia cases are diagnosed annually, with projections reaching 139 million by 2050.
Problem
Family caregivers of dementia patients struggle with scattered communication, leading to missed appointments, duplicated efforts, and unnecessary stress in an already challenging role.
The cost of innaction
Missed doctor’s appointments, forgotten medications, and unclear task delegation create unnecessary stress for families and can lead to medical complications for dementia patients.
How might we lift the burden of shared responsibility between caregivers to make caregiving more efficient and streamlined?
Understanding the caregiver
Women across generations, with the majority being Gen X (ages 45-55).
Some pills are only meant for a short time, but my siblings sometimes aren’t aware of this and keep giving them to my dad.
We have a board on the fridge with the medications so we don’t miss any.
We started recording the physio’s instructions and shared them to the What’sApp group. It was a hassle to find the recordings.
Daily tasks
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Sharing updates
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Coordinating schedules
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Tracking medications & appointments
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Ensuring medical instructions are followed
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Household maintenance for the person with dementia
Biggest struggles
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Lack of coordination and unclear responsibilities
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Uneven caregiving workload across multigenerational families
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Role reversal within families
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Mounting stress and burnout
How do they currently communicate?
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In-person communication
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Physical whiteboards
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Phone calls
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Personal and chat text messages (written, voice note, multimedia)
A centralized information hub app focused on facilitating easy information exchange within a group of caregivers to minimize the loss of vital details.
Defining core experience
Second brain
Information dump of the most common shared information between non-primary caregivers.
Collaboration enhancer
A way to check availability, prioritize tasks, and prevent confusion within caregiving teams.
Versatile
Customizable features support caregivers and care recipients.
Insights after testing
I conducted guerrilla testing with general users and thinking aloud tests with persona-aligned caregivers. This mixed approach provided broader perspective while ensuring findings remained relevant to the target audience.
Users were looking for a way to access a quick action to see tasks assigned to themselves
01
Users expected a summary screen at the end of the creation of a task
02
"List" & "category add" flows were confusing on the to-do list flow
03
Assigning a task to a person felt "robotic"
04
Users felt there were too many steps to assign a task
05
Users asked for a way to take over tasks or drop tasks
06
To conclude
This project began as a personal tribute to my grandpa, who has dementia, and to my family who cares for him. It was rewarding to see how excited specialists and other caregivers were about its potential.
Despite challenges reaching caregivers after moving to Canada, I gained valuable insights from families coping with dementia care and received enthusiastic support from geriatricians and gerontologists, particularly about the app's potential impact in Mexico where such solutions are scarce. User feedback exceeded expectations, revealing unexpected perspectives on information centralization and surprising me with how comfortably some Gen X women were using technology like Siri for daily assistance.
