Case Study · Mobile App · Social Impact Design
Caring Hands
Volunteer App
Connecting willing volunteers with seniors and disabled individuals who need help with everyday physical tasks — so both communities benefit.
Connecting willing volunteers with seniors and disabled individuals who need help with everyday physical tasks — so both communities benefit.
Not everyone can afford to hire someone to help with tasks like shovelling snow or mowing the lawn. At the same time, there are citizens in our community who are genuinely willing to lend a hand to seniors or those with disabilities.
Caring Hands acts as a bridge between these two groups — connecting them so that both can benefit from the exchange.
This project required understanding two very different user groups simultaneously — those who need help, and those willing to give it. I conducted interviews with both groups to capture their distinct needs and concerns.
User research summary — key insights from both user groups
Unlike most projects, Caring Hands required designing for two fundamentally different personas simultaneously — each with conflicting needs that both had to be served equally well.
Mapping both user journeys side by side revealed the critical moments where the experience had to work for both personas simultaneously — particularly around trust, matching, and task confirmation.
Adelaide's journey — requesting help with snow shovelling
Hans's journey — finding someone nearby to help and completing a task
I conducted a competitive audit of both direct and indirect competitors to identify their strengths and weaknesses — looking for gaps in the market that Caring Hands could fill.
Competitive audit — direct and indirect competitor analysis
Starting with paper allowed rapid exploration of the dual user flow — how the app would serve both Adelaide and Hans with a single, unified interface.
Early paper sketches — exploring dual user flows on a single platform
Moving to Figma, I built digital wireframes focusing on the task request flow, volunteer matching, and the critical trust-building touchpoints throughout the experience.
Digital wireframes — task request and volunteer matching flows
The clickable lo-fi prototype enabled the first round of usability testing with real participants from both target groups.
Lo-fidelity prototype — complete dual user flow mapped in Figma
I conducted two rounds of usability studies before finalising the design — testing with participants from both user groups. This dual-testing approach was essential to ensure the platform worked for everyone.
Round 1 findings
Round 2 findings
Iteration insights
After two rounds of usability testing and iteration, the final high-fidelity screens were designed — with particular attention to accessibility, legibility, and trust throughout the experience.
High-fidelity prototype — final screens ready for development handoff
Click through the full interactive Figma prototype to experience both user flows.
Open in Figma ↗Given that a core user group has physical disabilities, accessibility wasn't optional — it was the foundation of every design decision.
Caring Hands was the most emotionally significant project of the three. Designing for vulnerable users requires a different kind of empathy — one that goes beyond usability into genuine care for human dignity and safety.