In 2024, Semo was developed as a comprehensive senior-home living aggregator, addressing the fragmented search process for families seeking care options for seniors in their golden years. As an integrated platform, Semo also featured a care management and productivity dashboard designed to streamline operational workflows for nurses and care facility staff.
As a designer with healthcare industry experience, I collaborated with the product and design team to develop Semo from concept to MVP, ultimately preparing the product for government pitching and stakeholder engagement.
Product
Product
Skills
Experience Design
User-Interview
User-Testing
UX Research
Copywriting
My role
UX Design and UX Researcher
Timeline
6 Months - MVP
Problem space
Singapore's rapidly aging population will see seniors (65+) grow from 19.9% of citizens in June 2024 to around 24.1% by 2030, making it one of the world's fastest-aging societies. With limited land and high property costs, families face intense pressure finding suitable senior living options among Singapore's 88 nursing homes and numerous other eldercare facilities (including over 165 centre-based care facilities as of 2023).
The current search process can be fragmented — while the median waiting time for a subsidized nursing home bed has remained stable at around one month, families may still spend considerable time navigating options. This involves consulting government resources, making phone calls, and scheduling facility visits, often with varying levels of transparency about care quality or costs.
For affluent seniors seeking short-term stays during medical treatments, family visits, or while exploring long-term options, the challenges multiply. Singapore's medical tourism industry attracts thousands of regional seniors annually, yet they struggle to find appropriate temporary accommodations that meet their care needs and mobility requirements.
Recognizing this gap, we saw a significant opportunity to create Semo as a dual-platform solution that would streamline the search process for families while empowering care facilities with modern productivity tools for enhanced care delivery.
Research
On average, families visit 4-6 senior living facilities and spend 6-8 weeks researching options before making a decision for their loved ones. In the early stages of this project, I interviewed 8 seniors and their adult children, along with 3 nursing staff members, to understand their challenges and pain points when navigating the senior care selection process. I also led a series of user-testing and validation for the MVP product with nurses working in these spaces.
Key Pain Points
Lack of Transparency and Control in Decision-Making
Seniors feel overwhelmed and excluded from the senior home selection process, with limited access to clear information about facility quality, care standards, and costs. They struggle to evaluate options independently and often feel their preferences and autonomy are overlooked when families make decisions on their behalf, leading to anxiety about losing control over their living situation.
Fear of Unknown Care Quality and Social Environment
Seniors worry about the quality of care they'll receive and whether they'll fit into the social community at potential facilities. Without transparent reviews, care quality metrics, or ways to virtually experience the environment beforehand, they face uncertainty about daily life, meal quality, activity programs, and whether staff will treat them with dignity and respect.
Inefficient Family Communication and Expectations Management
Nurses spend significant time fielding repetitive inquiries from multiple family members asking the same questions about care procedures, facility policies, and resident progress. Without a centralized communication system, they struggle to manage family expectations, provide consistent updates, and often deal with frustrated families who feel left out of the care process, taking time away from direct patient care.
Journey Mapping & User Flows
As part of a multi-service and role system, the product needed to account for all necessary user flows and use cases for each staff member within care facilities. Drawing from my previous healthcare experience, I worked with the team to identify key opportunities to create a more intuitive experience for nurses and other care facility staff.
This research phase helped the entire product team understand the pain points and gaps in the current digital experience for healthcare professionals on the ground. By mapping out comprehensive user flows—from Super Admins to various levels of nursing roles within care facilities—we ensured the dashboard would serve all stakeholders effectively.
Synthesizing Data
Aligning stakeholders on research findings
The UX research phase involved recruiting, interviewing, and testing with end users to generate insights that would inform product decisions and improve Semo's user experience. The research validated the product MVP through a mixed-method study combining in-depth interviews and usability testing with task-oriented flows in a moderated setting.
Four nurses of mid-to-high seniority from Singapore's local healthcare clusters participated in the validation process. Their feedback confirmed the product objectives and helped refine our understanding of the core problems being addressed.
Solution
The MVP focuses on creating an integrated senior living platform that connects families seeking care with facilities while providing operational tools for care providers. The platform offers families a search experience with facility profiles, virtual tours, and availability information, while nursing staff can access communication tools and dashboards designed to support their daily workflows within care facilities.
Additional features under development include digital entry of daily vitals and health status information, which family members can view through connected profiles in the mobile app. Other planned features include visitor pass management and day pass booking functionality.
Impact
Letting seniors live their best silver years
As a product brought from concept to MVP, I am very thankful to be invited to be part of this talented team. It truly touches my heart to design something so meaningful and improve the lives of others. Due to NDA, there will not be any product screens of the product in this case study until publicly marketed or deployed.
Next Project
loby
Product Design & Web Design