Financial Planning Solutions for Caregivers
CuroNow - Financial Team
Designed a mobile interface that empowered family caregivers to take control of their own and their loved one's financials through clear, centralized financial support
Role
UX Designer
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Tools/Skills
Figma
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Team
3 UX Designers,
1 Project Manager
Duration
8 Weeks
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Overview
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CuroNow is a health-tech startup focused on putting caregivers at the center of their solutions. Their mobile app centralizes tasks, resources, and medical information so family caregivers can better manage their homes, finances, and time.​ My team was responsible for the financial experience . Designing tools to help caregivers organize expenses, track reimbursements, manage budgets, and navigate insurance.
Project Timeline
The Problem Space
Navigating Financial Uncertainty While Caring for Someone Else
For many, caring for another person often means managing two financial worlds at once. Caregivers juggle the unique circumstances of unpredictable expenses, insurance paperwork, and shared budgets, and all while handling their own responsibilities.
“The medical and financial paperwork alone drains me, and then there’s the shopping, cooking, and appointments. I love my mom dearly, but it gets harder every day.”
- Caregiver, online caregiving community
Designing for Family Caregivers
Family caregivers often balance their primary jobs, loved ones’ health, and financial uncertainty. Our goal was to design tools that make managing caregiving finances clear and supportive, so that caregivers can put energy back into themselves.
User Research
Research with a Tight Timeline and Budget
Working with an eight-week timeline and no research budget, we still wanted to base our ideation on real caregiver needs. As such, I suggested we turn to online caregiver stories, community threads, and video diaries to find personal anecdotes, needs and pain points.
I then used the transcriptions and direct caregiver quotes, analyzing emerging patterns through affinity mapping and journey mapping.
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Our research painted a bigger picture - caregivers needed an experience beyond numbers.​
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Research Insights
Financial Frustrations and Emotional Themes
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User Research
Hypothesising Finance Needs and Success
Starting with a set of core financial features defined by CuroNow's Lead UX designer, I used our research to shape clear hypotheses for each financial area.
By connecting caregiver needs to the assumptions we were making and what success metrics would actually look like in testing, this step helped us move past a topic list and think more intentionally about how our project scope could work together to reduce stress and add clarity for caregivers.
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How Might We Statements
Bringing Structure to Uncertainty
I further defined our user needs by developing a set of “How Might We” questions that shaped our design direction. As I clarified our goals, I saw the need to deepen our understanding of caregiving finances, especially budgeting, tax management, and everyday financial decision-making. I researched these areas and created a shared reference guide for the team, grounding our solutions in realistic financial workflows and best practices.
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Wireframing
From Scattered Tasks to a Single System
Early sketches and competitor research on various budgeting, planning, and tax management mobile apps like NerdWallet and Every Dollar helped me explore how larger competitors combine these information-heavy tasks under a single visual language. I then drew out multiple layout options using Crazy 8 ideation, aiming for a calm, collective interface rather than a flood of numbers.​ We decided to group information by mental model rather than data type:
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“What I need to track” “What I need to pay” “What’s coming up.”
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Designing personalization, not one-size-fits-all
​The qualitative research showed that financial needs and confidence varied widely between caregiver situations.
To address that, I introduced a personalized onboarding flow, and caregivers identify their financial focus areas (budgeting, insurance, tax management) and comfort level. Their dashboard would then adapt to those selections and create an experience shaped around their priorities rather than a generic template
Design Opportunity
Learning from Expert Feedback
After sharing our mid-fidelity prototypes, stakeholders challenged us to clarify who pays, better integrate the calendar, and support both caregiver and care recipient views​​
Their feedback reframed our design hierarchy and allowed us to broaden the scope of our project to include educational learning opportunities throughout the product.
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Stakeholder Session
Key Iterations
Applying Feedback for Realistic Caregiving
01 Prioritized time-sensitive actions
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Integrated with the calendar, such as upcoming bills and reimbursements at the top of the dashboard, making it clear to whom each task belongs.
02 Established who the users are planning for
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Onboarding question prompts whether the dashboard reflects the caregiver, the care recipient, or both, ensuring a more personalized experience.
03 Defining who paid, contributions, and covered costs
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Payment and tax management features now specify payment details, adding more flexible payment options reducing confusion during shared financial planning.
Caregiving Solutions
CuroNow Feature Highlights
Final Prototypes
A Design That Lets Families Focus on Care, Not Calculations
The final solution combined empathy, financial best practices, and minimalistic design to create a unified financial experience that lets caregivers take care of themselves and their loved ones with confidence.
Reflection
Learnings and Next Steps
This project taught me flexibility in creating research-based design decisions even without direct user access. The final design reduced confusion around shared finances through extensive research, iteration, and feedback sessions, creating a centralized experience that can make caregivers lives easier.
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Next steps: Extend testing with active caregivers, usability testing, and explore how education and guidance can be incorporated throughout the tool's processes.
Team Process
CuroNow Photo Gallery
