Designing an In-Home Senior Care Marketplace
Elder Care Marketplace based in Austin, TX
The senior home care industry is fragmented, antiquated, and lacks modern technological support.
As a long-time client of Slide UX, senior living referral service A Place for Mom saw an opportunity to help families with the type of care most families seek first: in-home care.
The goal was to give families peace of mind by allowing them to easily find, hire, and communicate with quality in-home caregivers for senior loved ones.
The platform served a diverse, often non-technical user base, primarily home care providers and the loved ones of seniors. Trust, simplicity, and multilingual support were essential to success.
“Slide UX took the time to understand the unique circumstances of our industry and went into the weeds to ensure a successful outcome.”
What we did
Slide UX led the design process from discovery through delivery:
Problem Discovery: Working in collaboration with stakeholders from A Place for Mom, we sought out and interviewed industry experts, caregivers, and families. This helped us to uncover challenges like caregiver tech literacy, privacy concerns, and communication norms.
Competitive Analysis: We studied competitors including traditional in-home care agencies as well as tech-forward brands like Care.com and Honor. By auditing their online experiences and interviewing those with experience in the space, we came to understand the norms and challenges of the in-home care market.
Service Design: We used diagrams to capture each function of the business. The diagrams helped to identify who would do what - from the mobile app to the family, the caregiver, and the call center. This helped us understand what expectations to set for families, and how the business back-end needed to support this new undertaking.
Material-Inspired UI and Visual Design: Our team crafted a clean, modern interface with visual and motion design that supported ease of use and cognitive simplicity.
Simplicity and Support: We designed in-app training and guidance tailored for the in-home caregiver, a user base that includes many non-native English speakers and older women who were less comfortable doing things by app.
User Testing: We conducted in-person testing with real caregivers to ensure that the app met the needs of this unique user group and that every element was accessible and intuitive.
Feature Design: We supported ongoing feature design, allowing caregivers to find local job opportunities and families to coordinate and manage care services securely.
“Slide UX is fun to work with and understood our business.”
Impressive outcomes
With Slide UX as a core design partner, the project reached several critical milestones:
Early discovery and concept work by Slide UX helped unlock an $8MM board-approved investment
Our clients hired a total of 50+ recruiters and home care advisors.
The team built a caregiver marketplace that ultimately included thousands of top caregivers in key markets.
Hundreds of families received matches with vetted home care providers from our network..
Looking back
This project exemplified Slide UX’s strengths in healthcare UX and marketplace design. We created an experience that felt safe, supportive, and empowering for users navigating a deeply personal process.
Our designs were shaped by nuanced field learnings—from the reluctance of caregivers to communicate digitally, to the privacy risks involved in sharing senior care details.
The work laid a forward-thinking foundation for what compassionate, scalable care coordination should look like in the digital age.
“Slide UX became an integral partner and we trusted them to make the right recommendations. ”