Levo: Latin “levare”: lift, elevate, or raise
It all begins with an idea. Levo is an upcoming company aiming to change the caregiver industry. Levo is an application and desktop dashboard built for caregivers and staff to collaborate together. Levo’s new way of thinking about the users is looking to solve caregiver burnout and staff frustration.
Home Care Workers’ Retention Rate is at an All-Time-Low
Home care is one of the fastest growing occupations in the United States and yet, turnover remains at an all time high across the industry. Caregivers burnout frequently because of low pay and high stress. One in six home care workers live in households below the federal poverty line and nearly half live in low-income households. Low compensation and the grueling nature of the job drive high turnover which in turn can threaten care quality and continuity. Home care employers consistently struggle to recruit and retain enough caregivers to meet the escalating demand.
My Role
My role at Levo was to create the staff experience and re-define their website build-out using their brand and the application as inspiration. When I joined Levo as a consultant, the current state of the website’s wireframes were messy and did not meet the needs of their audience. Therefore, I conducted an initial interview for research, created sketches and wireframes, tested my wireframes and designed the website from the staff experience to make sure this could be a product people could use easily and get their work done smoothly.
Had one task per page with a lot of unnecessary space that could’ve been utilized for content
No calendar tool to view and manage client and caregivers’ schedules
Not intuitive for everyone
Secondary Research
In order to understand who I was designing this website for, I had to learn the struggle of the industry. I read articles about the statistics of home care workers; where they live, their median household income, how many hours they work in a week, their race and ethnicity, their sex, etc.
What’s already out there?
There was only one product that was a major competitor called ClearCare, which provides management tools such as marketing, applicant tracking, billing and payroll, scheduling, etc. ClearCare has a current scheduling system that matches slots with available caregivers but was unclear about how they match them. ClearCare also has a great service for learning and training but does not focus on satisfaction or retention services.
Primary Research
I conducted an interview with the founder of Levo’s friend, Robin who owns her own home care company in Philadelphia over Zoom for about an hour. I was able to learn about her day-to-day tasks, her goals and her struggles.
My Strategy
The Caregiver Facebook
After interviewing with Robin, I started envisioning this website as a social media dashboard, such as Facebook or Yammer, where staff would be able to see all of their updates. Therefore, I sketched out how these updates would be viewed and what information was best to be displayed. I also sketched out the calendar part of this website and how best to show upcoming shifts with both clients and caregivers.
Wireframing
Taking my sketches to life on the computer, I realized I had more to think about than just showing a news feed of updates and schedules.
Adding a new shift with a recommended caregiver to save time
Viewing caregiver details and job growth to give rewards and keep retention rates high
Having an overview of completed shifts or number of caregivers to view instantly and being able to see news feed specifics on the dashboard
Testing and Revamping
I then tested my updated wireframes with a staff manager from another company in Philadelphia that uses ClearCare. She gave us great advice to take these to the next level.
Adding total hours to the overview and being able to filter updates by high alert, job growth, and more
Adding login statuses of caregivers and their contact information for easy access when adding a caregiver to a new shift
Filter client and caregiver schedules by missing vs. recurring and have their current schedule on the side when adding a new shift to refer to already scheduled events
Adding billing information for when adding a client and if they need hospice care or not
Adding filters and alerts for whether or not a caregiver has clocked into their shift
What Worked
While testing, there were a lot of comments of features this woman loved about my product.
The overview stats of what is going on throughout the day on the main page.
When picking a caregiver for a new shift, it mentions the hobbies of that caregiver that match with the client. She said that would be great for retention because then they would be thinking of the caregiver.
Also when picking a caregiver for a new shift, she loved that she could see an overview of where the caregiver will be before the new shift because caregiver’s don’t want to travel far if they are working a shift before that.
Viewing and being able to see if a caregiver or client is in a shift currently with their contact information right next to it. This helps to show a staff manager when is a good time to contact them or not.
The Conclusion
After testing and revamping, it was time to add Levo’s brand to match the application. To continue this product, I would have liked to test this again with more participants to see if my understandings were correct.
