Case Study · Dementia Care · AI Companion

Catherine

An AI companion for dementia family caregivers, built for the moments they face alone.

Role UX Designer Team Solo UXD · 6-person early-stage team Timeline 2022 prototype (pre-MVP) · Retrospectively reimagined in 2026
Catherine desktop chat — a memory-aware, empathetic response to a caregiver's question Catherine mobile chat showing the same response on a phone
Linda sits by her mother's bedside at 11pm, holding her phone, with a thought bubble that reads 'How do I answer this question?'
11:00 PM

Linda has just gotten her mother to sleep. For the fifth time today, Mom asked, "Where is my husband?" Each time, Linda didn't know how to answer — the truth would devastate her mother, a lie would devastate Linda. She picks up her phone, not wanting to bother anyone, looking for one thing: how do I answer this question?

Context

The reality of caregiving

Dementia caregivers don't only face care tasks. They face constant emotional pressure and an information vacuum. In the critical moments — when a mother asks repeatedly about someone who passed, when a father refuses to eat, when wandering happens — they need immediate, trustworthy answers, not a list of forty Google results to triage.

Existing resources are either too scattered or too gatekept. In the moments help is needed most, the caregiver is often alone.

Who I designed for

Family caregivers, mostly invisible

Spouses and adult children. Aged 45–75. Moderate-to-low digital comfort. Living under sustained stress. Almost always unprepared for the sudden behavioral incidents dementia brings.

Linda, 55

Daughter and primary caregiver

Caring for Mom (Sarah, 78) · early-to-mid stage dementia · lives with her
Hardest hours Late evening, after the household quiets and questions start to repeat
Tech comfort Daily phone user. Will not read a 12-paragraph article at 11 PM.
Pain points
  • Repeated questions she doesn't know how to answer
  • Behavioral changes that arrive without warning
  • Generic Google results that don't fit her exact situation
  • Reluctance to keep asking family or friends for help
2022 · Then

What we built in 2022

Catherine was built by a fully remote, early-stage team. As the only designer, I worked outside the rooms where most decisions formed.

I owned the sign-up/login flow and the chat interface wireframes. AI behavior, tone, and product strategy sat outside my scope.

2022 sign-up screen wireframe — full-page form with required fields including phone number and password complexity rules, with 'Try as guest' demoted to a secondary link

Sign-up / Log-in

1 Gate before value. Users had to commit before experiencing what Catherine could do for them.
2 Required fields stacked up. Name, email, phone, complex password — all asked upfront, without explaining what they were for.
3 "Try as guest" was a side door. The most valuable entry point was a footnote, not the default path.
2022 chat interface wireframe — generic greeting with a topic picker first, no memory anchor or signal of continuity between sessions

Chat interface

1 Generic greeting. Catherine introduced herself the same way to everyone, every time. No acknowledgment of context, urgency, or returning visit.
2 No memory anchor. Each session felt like a fresh start. The caregiver had to re-explain their situation every time.
3 "Pick a topic" framing. Catherine asked what category the user wanted to discuss — a UI metaphor that doesn't match how distress arrives.

Feedback was sparse. Decisions arrived as instructions, not conversations, and I delivered without asking what they were for.

2026 · Now

Reframing Catherine as an AI companion

What I'd build if I came back to this problem today — not as a chatbot, but as a companion that remembers, behaves with care, and earns its place in a caregiver's hardest hours.

2026 Catherine sign-up screen — a calm Welcome Home page with social sign-in, a short email/password form, and supportive copy

1 · Gentle sign-up

Shrink the form. Only ask for what is necessary — phone numbers, complex passwords, and marketing checkboxes are removed.

2026 Catherine home — a warm welcome with quick-topic cards for common caregiving challenges

2 · Supportive chat entry

A low-pressure start: immediate access with a warm welcome and quick-topic cards for common challenges like repetitive questions and sleep issues.

2026 Catherine conversation — a structured, easy-to-read response with emotional validation and practical guidance

3 · Empathetic conversation

A structured, easy-to-read chat experience that prioritizes emotional validation and practical guidance over generic bot interactions.

2026 Catherine Notebook — saved conversations styled as a personal journal

4 · Compassionate “Notebook”

A saved-conversations list styled as a personal journal, making it easy for caregivers to revisit trusted advice during difficult moments.

Reflection

What I learned, asked years late.

Back then, design decisions arrived without rationale, and I executed without questioning what I might have asked. I didn't realize that pushing for the "why" — even in writing, even unanswered — was part of my job, not a luxury reserved for senior designers.

In some sense, this case study is those questions, asked years late.

Forward-looking · 01

Design for trust before engagement.

In high-stakes contexts, retention and DAU will mislead you. Solve "do users dare to trust this?" before "how often do users come back?" Engagement metrics are downstream of trust — never the other way around.

Forward-looking · 02

Start with the moment, not the feature.

Always begin from a specific user moment — with time, place, and emotional context — not an abstract feature description like "an AI assistant for X." If you can't picture the moment, you can't design for it.