Managing scattered family information.
2022 - 2023
How did a recent college graduate end up in the senior space? Five years ago, my Bubby passed away, leaving behind an important lesson. She had overlooked many things before her passing, and it took my family over three months to access her critical information because everything was stored in an outdated system on her desktop. Worst of all, we didn't have an organized way of preserving and passing down Bubby’s story — her legacy. Memories of her were scattered across a dozen devices, file cabinets, and Shutterfly books.
And that’s how Keepsake started.
There is no central hub for all of life’s important information. Our lives are full of scattered, unorganized information, and critical details often slip through the cracks when we need them most.
Personalize a home base for all of life's important information. Organize, manage, and share everything from health to wealth to cherished stories, ensuring you're prepared for life’s major transitions.
To better understand the gaps in personal information management.
We conducted online market research and hosted group interviews with approximately 30 older adults in southern California. The discussions focused on their end-of-life planning readiness and the challenges they encountered in organizing their important information.
Why is timing so important? America is getting older. According to an analysis of U.S. Census data conducted by the Population Reference Bureau, it is predicted that the number of people age 65 and older in the United States will nearly double to 95 million by 2060. So, we're seeing a macro trend of not only the largest transfer of intergenerational wealth, but intergenerational knowledge.
There are 20 million informal caregivers in the US, 60% of whom work full time while providing care to their aging parents. Current solutions fall short in accounting for every important detail, making it difficult to care for our older loved ones and manage affairs after they pass away.
Nearly all participants had overlooked accounting for basic information or organizing affairs for their loved ones, highlighting a significant gap in their end-of-life preparedness. Many even revealed they omit keeping track of essential passwords.
From our market research and participant feedback, two common challenges emerged:
Competitors are positioned exclusively across three markets: life organization, memory preservation, and end-of-life planning. However, there’s no solution covering everything you need both up to and after a loved one passes away.
To address the pain points identified in the 'Research' stage and design a user-friendly interface that enhances personal information management.
With the help of FigJam affinity mapping and flow charts, we narrowed our ideas down to 2 loose concepts:
Category-based guided prompts, providing users with a starting point to organize important information.
Share portal for users to grant specified access to trusted individuals, ensuring the right people can access the right information when it matters most.
We gathered family and friends based on their willingness to provide detailed feedback.
Participants were asked to perform a few tasks designed to test overall usability:
1) Find specific topics when prompted
2) Create a new entry
3) Share their account with a trusted individual
We collected data through detailed observational notes and user feedback surveys.
Challenge: Participants struggled to navigate between the categories and find specific topics.
Strengths: Participants complimented Keepsake's user-friendly interface.
To address these usability issues, we implemented one key change:
Expand categories and re-categorize topics for easier navigation.
https://www.figma.com/design/5NN4LxZYND98lcflVbpo0X/Keepsake?node-id=0-1&t=1yZPzXLtRMkIhPI5-1
Here’s how I developed initial wireframes into impactful, user-driven designs.
Keepsake is structured into seven distinct categories: Documents & IDs, Property, Insurance, Passwords, Money, Legacy, and Estate Plan. Each category is further divided into sub-categories, with suggested entries and tailored prompts that seamlessly guide users through the process, ensuring all relevant details are captured efficiently. The key design focus was to create a holistic view of life's information while minimizing cognitive load.
This three-step sharing process enables users to securely share their important information with trusted individuals. Users can choose to grant either full or selective access, and must create personalized security questions for added verification. Access is granted only after the recipient provides correct answers and the user confirms their accuracy. The design emphasizes highly customizable sharing options while ensuring robust security.
Over the course of working on Keepsake as a family solution, we worked with 6 technical contributors, designed over 500 Figma frames, created and managed over 1000 Linear issues, and implemented over 800 lines of code.
Through our testing phase, we engaged over 30 active users, and 50 total users.
Thorough customer discovery and market research are often overlooked. Unfortunately, we fell into the trap most startups fall into: false validation, creating something that nobody wanted or was willing to pay for. We ended up solving a problem, but not an important one. Our initial belief that we were a 'need-to-have' turned out to be just a 'nice-to-have.'
In a startup, speed is crucial. Constantly learning about our market and potential users meant we had to be ready to pivot and quickly implement changes without trying to create the "perfect" product. Prioritizing speed allowed us to remain agile and responsive to valuable feedback, and continuously improve the product.
Isabella was a pleasure to work with during my time on the Keepsake team. She is an excellent communicator and leader, and it was easy to work through the problems facing our users together. Her designs always showed a high level of polish and attention to detail, and they were both aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly. She would be a great asset to any team.
As a partner, I've had the privilege of working alongside Izzy to lead build our team and product from the ground up. She thrives in a fast-paced environment, and works best when juggling multiple responsibilities. Izzy is a quick and curious learner who dives deep into complex issues and drives constant innovation. What sets her apart is her strong attention to detail and dedication to her team. She's always willing to put in the extra hours to get the job done. She's a natural leader and an exceptional communicator, always organized and prepared for whatever challenges come our way. She's an indispensable part of the team.
