Bedside Chats: iOS Adaptation for
Senior Healthcare
Empowering patients to plan, prepare, and organize medical conversations
Duration
3 months
Disciplines
- Product Design
- Experience Design & Strategy
Tools
- Figma
- Miro
- Zoom
Project at a Glance
Bedside Chats is a health tech startup (ACGME/OSU-sponsored) that aims to enhance communication between providers and elderly patients.
So What?
Designing an 80-screen iOS ecosystem for seniors in 90 days proves that research is a strategic safeguard, not just a usability check. By using AARP and Pew data to guide high-speed “Decision Jams,” this sprint turned a 40% interest gap into a functional reality. It shows how a research-first approach prevents a team from wasting months on features that don’t work for the 65+ market, securing a competitive edge in a high-growth vertical.
Constraints
Target OS (iOS 11) legacy requirements, high system complexity, and fixed branding elements (colors/elements) defined by the Co-founder.
Process
The Challenge:
Adapting fast tech for users with reduced reactivity
Bedside Chats had a web application, but their core demographic (senior citizens) struggled with the interface. The challenge was not just functionality, but accessibility.
The core question
“How do we design an interface that supports the healthcare routine of a user group with age-related impairments (e.g. vision, motor control) and lower digital literacy?”
Discovery:
The senior demographic is increasingly digital, but underserved
40%
Of seniors expressed interest in tech for medication reminders and provider communication.
21%
Of seniors are open to video conferencing with providers.
4x
Increase in smartphone adoption among seniors in the last 5 years.
Evolving the workflow
Adapting project management rigor to meet a 3-month deadline.
Rapid Ideation Workshop
Generating mobile concepts from web constraints in 90 minutes.
The team successfully adapted 4 out of 6 core pages in a single 1.5-hour session using the Lightning Decision Jam technique.
Step 1: Ideation
Generation: Silent sketching to prevent groupthink.
Step 2: Voting
Voting: Democratic selection of strongest features.
Step 3: Convergence
Prioritization: Selecting MVP features for the 3-month sprint.
UX Benchmarking Analysis
To minimize friction for elderly users, we avoided reinventing Ul patterns.
Instead, we conducted benchmarking research to leverage interactions seniors have already mastered in other popular applications. mobile concepts from web constraints in 90 minutes.
Analyzed for chat interface architecture, specifically evaluating linear message threading and the visual communication of deleted-item states.
Todoist
Audited for list management systems, with a focus on multi-select interaction patterns and nested checklist logic.
Duolingo
Evaluated for voice/audio UX, specifically the accessibility of high-affordance button targets and real-time recording feedback loops.
Chat History
List Selection
Audio Interface
Bridging Design and Code
The Constraint
Synchronous meetings were limited to once a week.
The Solution
Asynchronous Figma communication.
The Pink Notes
Real-time questions from the engineer about flow, edge cases, and specs.
The Solution:
A Comprehensive
Design System
Timeline
The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more or less normal distribution of the point of using.
80+
High-Fidelity Screens
Full
iOS Adaptation
Complete
Component Library
Key Takeaways
Empathy First
Designing for the elderly taught us that accessibility features like clear navigation, simple interactions, and high contrast actually result in a better experience for everyone.
Agile Adaptability
The strategic value of shifting from Waterfall to Scrum to manage time constraints without sacrificing quality.
Clarity Over Trends
Learning that clear navigation and simple interactions outweigh flashy design trends when accessibility is the priority.
Testimonials
“Natalia’s relentless curiosity led her to constantly identify ways to bring value to the team, whether it related to determining how to create highly intuitive customer-focused design elements for a mobile application, which when geared towards 80-year olds with very limited technology experience, is no easy task.”