Connecting offline seniors to the families who miss them

Project Luminary was an early Asurion product: a repurposed Android tablet built for one job, closing the communication gap between seniors who are offline and their remote family members. I helped define the vision and design strategy, made the design artifacts, and tested and iterated against the success metrics with a multidisciplinary team. This was years before Apple introduced its accessibility offering for older adults.

Role

Product design: vision, strategy, research, testing

Company

Asurion

Device

Repurposed Android tablet

Pilot

112 seniors, 394 family members

case.md

$ cat outcome

felt_improvement: 60% of pilot

willing_to_pay: $20 to $30 a month

The Luminary home screen on a tablet: a list of family members on the left and three large buttons to send a voice memo, a chat message or a photo — The home screen. Family on the left, and three ways to send something, each with a big button and a word.

Why it mattered

The people who most want to hear from their families are often the ones least able to use the devices that would let them.

60-second read

Problem

Seniors who are offline are cut off from family who live far away, and standard devices are not built for them.

System decision

Repurpose an Android tablet to do one thing: keep a senior and their family in touch.

My contribution

Product vision, design strategy, artifacts, testing, and iteration, plus recruiting and managing the pilot group.

Result

60% of the pilot group felt communication improved, and they were willing to pay $20 to $30 a month to keep it.

01 · Product vision

Start with the pain points, then map them with the whole team.

I led the creation of Luminary’s product vision through pain point research, using ethnography and market research, and mapping exercises with the multidisciplinary team. Working from what seniors and their families actually described gave engineering, product, and design the same picture of the problem before anyone drew a screen.

02 · The pilot

112 seniors and 394 family members, for continuous discovery.

I acquired and managed the pilot group and used it for continuous product discovery rather than a one-off test. Because family members were part of the pilot, we could see both sides of each conversation: the senior at the tablet and the relative on the other end.

03 · The buyer

The person who pays is rarely the person who uses it.

I built Luminary’s buyer persona through qualitative and quantitative research. That gave the team a clear audience for the digital acquisition campaigns at launch, aimed at the family member who would buy the service for a parent or grandparent.

04 · The interface

Three things a person can send, each one a single button.

Every action follows the same pattern: a plain instruction, one large button, and a back arrow. Each step names what will happen next, and the thread confirms delivery.