Anonymised case | Silver economy
A care app built with everyone who looks after an older person
A Spanish startup in the silver economy wanted one app to connect older people with everyone who looks after them: family, care homes and social services. This silver economy research, with 100 in-depth interviews and three co-creation workshops in Asturias and Alicante, shaped the app that is now in pilot.
Innovation & productService | Innovation & productResearch that shapes what you build: concepts, prototypes, product tests and co-creation with the people who will use it.- Silver economy
- Spain
QualitativeMethod | Human StoriesIn-depth interviews and ethnography that explain why people think and act the way they do.
A Spanish care-tech startupAnonymised
Asturias and Alicante | 2023
- 100
- in-depth interviews
- 3
- co-creation workshops
- 6
- months of work
- 2
- councils in the pilot
A real project. The startup’s name stays private until the app is launched.
01
The decision on the table
Many older people in Spain live alone, or with a son or daughter who carries most of the care. Around them there are more people involved: the rest of the family, the staff of a care home, the council’s social services, organisations such as the Red Cross. Each one holds a piece of the picture, and the pieces rarely meet.
A Spanish startup in the silver economy wanted to build one app that connects all of them, for phones and for the web. The risk was clear: an app designed around a tidy idea of care can end up as one more app nobody opens. Before building, it needed to know what each side lacks today, and how one tool could work for a relative in another city, a care worker on the night shift and the older person at the centre of it all.
02
The questions
- Where does communication break down between older people and the relatives who don’t live with them?
- How does information move in a care home between staff, residents and families, and where does it get stuck?
- How do municipal social services find and support older people who live with unwanted loneliness?
- How can one tool meet the needs of three very different users: families, care professionals and older people?
03
Why we designed it this way
The app had to work for people with very different days, jobs and digital habits. The research was built to hear each of them, and then to design with them.
Every side of the care
About a third of the interviews with families, a third with care homes and a third with municipal social services, plus care organisations such as the Red Cross and older people themselves.
Cities and villages
Fieldwork in Gijón, Avilés and Oviedo, in Asturias, and in Alicante, in urban and rural areas, with public and private care homes. Care is organised differently in a city flat and in a village.
Designed with them in the room
Three in-person co-creation workshops turned the research into the design of the app. Older people, care homes and social services then tried the prototypes.
04
Under the hood
For the insights team who want to check the rigour.
Sample
100 in-depth interviews in Spain, about a third each with families, care homes (management and staff) and municipal social services, plus care organisations such as the Red Cross. Older people were interviewed too.
Where
Gijón, Avilés and Oviedo, in Asturias, and Alicante, in cities and rural areas. Around five care homes, public and private.
Co-creation workshops
Three in-person workshops to turn what we heard into the design of the app, screen by screen.
Prototype testing
Older people, care home staff and social services tried the prototypes, and what they found went into the next version.
From research to product
We translated the research into the design of the app. A software company built it, and we reviewed and improved its experience and interface.
Duration
Six months, in 2023.
05
What we can tell you
The product is still private. What we can share is what each side of the care told us it was missing.
Families want one shared conversation
Many older people live alone, or with a son or daughter who does most of the caring. Families wanted one place where everyone involved could talk: relatives, carers, the care home and social services.
In care homes, shifts barely talk
Staff on different shifts share little with each other about the same person, and families hear little about how their relative is doing, about visits or about taking them out for a walk. The app had to connect them in real time, with almost no extra effort.
Social services need a line both ways
Councils lack information about the older people in their area and a direct way to reach them with alerts, support, courses and activities. They also want older people and families to be able to answer back.
Help around the clock
Social services would set up a dedicated line, open 24 hours, for older people who live with unwanted loneliness or need care and feel unprotected.
Each of them holds part of the picture. The app was designed to put them in one shared conversation, with the older person at the centre and information that reaches everyone in real time.
06
What they received
Insight report on three fronts
The needs, frustrations and digital habits of families, care homes and social services, side by side.
Co-created prototypes
Designs for the app and the web app, made with the people who will use them and tested with older people, care homes and social services.
Pilot strategy
A plan to test the first version in real settings: homes, care homes and councils.
Feedback loop
A way to keep collecting what users say during the pilot and turn it into the next features.
Experience and interface review
Once the app was built, we reviewed it and improved the experience and the interface.
07
What happened next
The app is now in pilot with two councils, two care homes and five families. It was built around the way care already works in Spain, with the older person, their family, the care home and social services in the same conversation.
One lens, for now
This project was qualitative and hands-on: interviews, workshops and prototype tests. With the pilot running, the next layers would measure use and satisfaction across many more families and councils, through surveys, and listen to how families talk online about caring for an older relative, through social listening. That’s how a product study grows into an H3™ reading of a market.
- Human StoriesDone
- Hard EvidenceRecommended next
Building a product for people who are hard to reach? Design it with them in the room.
Tell us the decision in front of you and who the product has to work for. You get a fixed price and a date we commit to, and if co-creation isn’t what you need, you’ll hear that first.
- You get in touchBy email, through the form or on a video call, whichever suits you.
- We ask for the briefEvery detail we need, so the proposal is shaped around what you actually require.
- We design the proposalThe approach that answers your objectives, with the timeline and the budget.
- Approval, and we beginYou sign off, the paperwork is settled, and the work starts.
- Senior researchers only. No juniors.
- End to end. Design, fieldwork, reporting.
- No AI automation. Any use, disclosed.