Shipped
Designing the Network Behind the Care
When student burnout threatened an entire elder care system, I designed a platform that helped 4,000 caregivers find balance and kept care alive.
DURATION
5 months
Aug-Dec 2022
ROLE
End-to-end product designer (research → handoff)
TOOLS
Figma, Miro, Qualtrics
TEAM
PM, UX Researcher, Engineer, CEO
Solving the Caregiver Crisis: Students Need Support Too
Behind every elder receiving care is a student juggling exams, jobs, and emotional labor. Without proper tools or flexibility, many burn out before they can make an impact.
1 in 10
Students are caregivers
70%
Student caregivers say caregiving hurts their grades
2x
Caregiving students are twice as likely to experience burnout.
Why Existing Tools Weren’t Enough
CareYaya’s students needed structure, not more to-dos. Study apps like Anki and Quizlet assumed free time and consistency — luxuries caregivers didn’t have.
Anki
Built for long-term retention, backed by science, but too complex and time-consuming for overloaded student caregivers to adopt.
Quizlet
Easy to use and quick to start, but lacks the proven spaced repetition that makes learning stick under pressure.
VS
If students burn out, the entire system breaks.
Without time to rest, learn, and stay on track academically, student caregivers can’t sustain their impact. Their success in class isn’t just personal — it’s essential to community care.
Sarah, 22
Biology Major, UNC Chapel Hill
Goals
Gain caregiving experience to strengthen her med-school applications
Build empathy and real-world patient skills
Balance classes, labs, and care shifts without burnout
Challenges
Managing coursework, volunteering, and caregiving hours
Unpredictable schedules that disrupt study time
Feeling unseen by professors and overwhelmed by expectations
“Some days I feel like I’m holding two lives together — mine and theirs. If I drop one, everything falls apart.”
Protecting the Balance Between Learning and Caregiving
To ensure both students and elders thrive, CareYaya needed a way to give caregivers back time — helping them study smarter, stay on track, and continue caring for those who need them most.
Mapping fast starts, flexible inputs, and emotionally rewarding progress.
Building the Framework of Care
Wireframing tools to help student caregivers manage burnout, track progress, and sustain consistent elder care.
Each flashcard ends with a self-rated difficulty); a science-backed method proven to improve long-term retention.
Each flashcard ends with a self-rated difficulty (Very Difficult → Very Easy), letting users control how soon the card will reappear — a science-backed method proven to improve long-term retention.
This flow gives users control and flexibility by combining AI-generated and manual card creation.
Each flashcard ends with a self-rated difficulty (Very Difficult → Very Easy), letting users control how soon the card will reappear — a science-backed method proven to improve long-term retention.
Simplifies reflection to help students process emotional labor and prevent burnout after caregiving shifts.
Each flashcard ends with a self-rated difficulty (Very Difficult → Very Easy), letting users control how soon the card will reappear — a science-backed method proven to improve long-term retention.
Transforms invisible effort into visible progress, reinforcing motivation and a sense of impact.
Each flashcard ends with a self-rated difficulty (Very Difficult → Very Easy), letting users control how soon the card will reappear — a science-backed method proven to improve long-term retention.
I First Tried to Solve for Time — by Automating the Background
Because caregiving students were stretched thin, I designed automation to remove friction — decks built by AI, reviews scheduled automatically.
I Also Tried to Eliminate Decision Fatigue — by Hiding the Complexity
I ran spaced-repetition logic in the background, keeping users from seeing or controlling it.
It seemed elegant — until the system piled up tasks students couldn’t track or edit.
But I had a realization: Through Automation I Created More Stress in the process
The system kept assigning reviews even when students fell behind. Instead of feeling supported, they felt guilty and overwhelmed.
"I couldn't set my schedules and had no idea how the cards worked so the second I came back to the software I had an accumulation of cards and felt overwhelmed"
The Real Problem Was Clarity, Not Complexity
To understand why tools like Anki failed student caregivers, I ran a mixed-method study — a 15-person Qualtrics survey and 5 in-depth interviews with caregiving students.
These sessions revealed something surprising: students weren’t overwhelmed by too many options — they just didn’t understand them. Like Anki, our system felt “smart” but opaque.
By Reframing the Settings, Students Finally Understood the System
Once we replaced confusing terminology with plain language, users no longer felt overwhelmed. They could see how the system worked — and take control of it.
Letting Users Set Their Own Pace
I added simple controls to prevent cards from piling up if days are missed. Progress was reframed as “confidence,” not completion.
Designing a System That Supports, Not Pressures
After the redesign, students reported feeling less stress and more control. Retention on the platform tripled as caregiving and academics finally felt compatible.
Incorporated students’ favorite Anki graphs to make progress tracking familiar and motivating—transforming data into a sense of achievement.
Designing for Longevity, Not Just Efficiency
After introducing structure and balance, caregivers stayed 3× longer and care continuity improved across the entire network.
92%
Reported better fit with school + care routines.
78%
More users completed 3+ day study streaks after reminders were added.
67%
Started a session within 10 sec of opening.
8 in 10
Said it helped reduce stress about falling behind.
REACH OUT!
If you're building for education, care, or real-life complexity, reach out: naoboru@sas.upenn.edu — I’d love to collaborate.