AARP Caregiver Marketplace

Designing support systems for caregivers at national scale

Role: VP of Experience Scope: Multi-channel experience design, IA, key flows, interaction patterns Partners: AARP + 10Pearls (product & engineering) Environment: High-trust, accessibility-critical public platform

Caregiving is one of the most widespread — and least supported — roles in the United States. AARP set out to create a caregiver marketplace that combined trusted content, peer support, expert guidance, and service discovery into a coherent experience. The design challenge was not just navigation and UI polish — it was reducing cognitive load for people under stress and helping them move from “I don’t know where to start” to clear next steps.

Designing clarity and confidence for people under real stress.

Caregivers often arrive overwhelmed, short on time, and unsure what is trustworthy. The experience needed to balance empathy and authority: clear information architecture, approachable tone, accessible layouts, and a predictable path from learning to action. This work focused on unifying content, community, and services into a single journey — without forcing caregivers to context-switch across disconnected destinations.

Designed for real human stress, not ideal users

I prioritized clarity, pacing, and reduced cognitive load. The design used predictable patterns and progressive disclosure so caregivers could skim when overwhelmed and go deep when ready — without getting lost.

Unified content, community, and services into one journey

Instead of treating articles, discussion, and tools as separate silos, the experience connected them: learn → ask → act. Caregivers could move from trusted content to peer support and service discovery without breaking context.

Grounded the system in collaborative discovery

Workshops, journey mapping, and iterative wireframing translated complex caregiver realities into a scalable experience system. This created alignment across stakeholders while keeping the solution anchored in real user needs.

01 / Marketplace Overview — Content + Entry Points

02 / Mobile Experience — Designed for caregivers on the go

03 / Journey + IA — Learn → Ask → Act

04 / Wireframes — Rapid iteration + alignment

05 / Workshops — Discovery and team alignment

A cohesive caregiver experience across channels.

The work spanned content experiences, community touchpoints, and action-oriented pathways — ensuring caregivers could find trusted information, ask questions, and move toward services with minimal friction. The design emphasized accessibility, tone, and continuity so the experience felt supportive rather than overwhelming.

Key constraints

High emotional stress and time pressure
Accessibility and readability requirements
Content depth without cognitive overload
Cross-channel consistency (web + mobile)
Trust and credibility expectations

Key signals

This work prioritized clarity, accessibility, and trust — the essentials for public-facing experiences that support people in difficult moments.

Multi-channel

Designed for caregivers across web and mobile contexts, with consistent patterns and predictable navigation to reduce cognitive load.

High trust

Balanced editorial authority with peer support and expert guidance, using clear hierarchy, tone, and accessibility-first layouts.

Final thoughts

Work shown represents a composite of design and production artifacts. Some details have been abstracted to respect confidentiality.