Mighty Health: Mitigating loneliness in adults 65+ through social features

Role:

Product Designer

Timeline:

Sep 2020 - Apr 2021

Industry/Org:

Healthcare (YC startup)

Scope of Work

UX Research, Design System, Prototyping & Usability Testing

01 project overview

Noticed a mental well-being struggle for older adults and drove it into a feature proposal into an existing app by collaborating with founders and PM.

Problem Root Cause

As people get older, they face loneliness and hardship of low digital literacy rate placing them into a negative loop. Adults aged over 65+ often live alone, and seek for ways to connect and belong in a community.

Solution

Designed a Mental Well-being section: mood tracking, social goal setting, breathing exercises, and a friendly community chat - projected to reduce reported loneliness by 20 - 30%.

02 problem framing

After interacting with current app features, we moved on to a feature proposal where older adults feel connected, not just healthy.

To understand what "loneliness" actually meant for users,

Our team started talking to current users, and focused on what struggles that they face every day relating to their mentall well-being before sketching a single screen.

03 Challenges & pain points

After 8 user interviews, and 2 rounds of task-completion testings, I found 2 things I didn't anticipate.

Users had no vocabulary for their emotions.

Most participants had never tracked mood digitally and many struggled to articulate how they felt beyond "fine" or "not great." Standard emoji scales caused confusion: "That face looks angry to me."

Empty community screens triggered anxiety.

When users landed in a blank chat, they froze. "Am I supposed to say something first? What if no one responds?" First-message rate in Round 1 was just 17%.

04 user flow & design system

I improvised the direction into a distinct "Wellness" section within the app with its own visual language, navigation entry point, and onboarding.

By reducing cognitive load in data interpretation,

I replaced complex graphs with illustrations and expressive language by giving users a gentler, more intuitive way to track and interpret their mood.

Instead of formal community feed to connect,

I designed a casual social space where older adults could connect through lighthearted chats and shared activities making connection feel natural, not forced.