Context
Memry was a DALI Lab project that I was a developer for during my senior fall at Dartmouth alongside two other developers, three designers, and one project manager. This was the first term in DALI where I was the most experienced developer on the team. Shifting into a mentorship role was challenging but gave me the opportunity to share everything I wish I had been told as a new DALI developer. It also meant that when I didn’t know how to do something, I couldn’t just ask the most experienced developer on the team for help. I was the senior developer that was supposed to be able to help. Learning how to find resources and answers to the development team’s problems and questions was a new kind of challenge, but one that helped prepare me for my full-time role at Epic, where I constantly have to identify the right questions and the right people to answer my questions.
The Problem
Caring for a loved one who is suffering from late-stage Alzheimer’s disease is immensely challenging. Beyond addressing their loved ones’ physical needs, caregivers also shoulder the emotional toll of watching their loved ones lose their memory. These individuals often feel alone and unsupported.
Memry is a mobile application that helps caregivers connect with their loved ones who are suffering from this disease by 1) providing real-world activities for them to do together, 2) creating a community of caregivers, and 3) tracking their progress and milestones.
Screenshot of the home tab. From here, users can select an activity that they would like to participate in for the day. Activities can be categorized as either cognitive, creative, or physical.
The Solution: Daily Activities
Memry’s primary feature is suggesting activities that caregivers can do with their loved one. On the home page, there are 3 broad categories of activities (Cognitive, Creative, and Physical) with 3 activities inside each category. At the top of the screen is the activity of the day which rotates each day.
When an activity is selected, there is a description that shows why this activity helps with Alzheimer’s. Once users complete an activity, they can rate the activity using an emoji or write notes about their experience.
Screenshot of milestone tab. From here, users can see a graph depicting which categories they are completing the most as well as a holistic calendar view where they can review past activities and ratings.
The Solution: Milestones
The Milestones page provides a comprehensive view of the activities users have completed with their loved ones.
The donut graph shows a quick overview of the patient’s activity by category over the past week. The calendar is a more in-depth view that highlights the dates the user has completed activities. By clicking on a date in the calendar, the user can see all the activities completed that day alongside their respective ratings and notes.
Screenshot of community feed tab. From here, users can see the activities that other caregivers are completing.
The Solution: Community Feed
The Community feed pulls the 10 most recent activities that have been completed by any user in the app. It shows the activity, first name of the user, approximate location, and time. This view is meant to encourage a sense of community between users and minimize the isolation that can be associated with being a caregiver.
Reviewing Activities
These screenshots demo completing and reviewing activities. When you select an activity from the home page, you see a description of the activity as well as instructions. Once you complete the activity, you can rate the activity and optionally add notes. You can review these ratings and notes from the Milestone tab by selecting the date that you would like to view.
After selecting an activity in the home page, users can see a description of the activity and instructions.
Upon completing the activity, users are prompted to rate the activity and they can optionally add notes.
Users can review previous activity ratings and notes by navigating to the Milestones tab and selecting the date that they would like to view.
Users can view the activity, their rating, and any notes they decided to write. Additionally, they can edit their note in this screen.
User Registration
These screenshots demo the user registration workflow. It’s quite simple since we only need to collect the user’s name, email, and password.
Login view with first card that describes a Memry feature.
Login view with second card that describes a Memry feature.
Login view with third card that describes a Memry feature.
Users can create an account or log into Memry using their email.
Prompt the user to enter their email to start the password reset process.
Reset user password.
Create a Memry account.
My Contribution
Since this was a 1-term prototype, the first half of the 10 weeks was dedicated to design, so my role during that phase of the project was to engage in app design meetings, design the database schema, and create the initial project skeleton. In the latter half of the term, I implemented the onboarding portion of the app.