01 · The challenge
Support the work.
Protect the relationships.
Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORCs) are neighbourhoods or buildings where many residents are older adults. The NORC model brings health and social support to people where they already live, helping them age in their own communities.
The NORC Innovation Centre needed a digital platform to support frontline teams and program evaluation. But the service’s value came from rapport, trust, and everyday human interactions. A new tool had to fit that reality.
How could a platform support frontline staff while preserving the human connection at the heart of care?
This meant understanding more than individual screens. We needed to connect staff workflows, care coordination, leadership priorities, and the information needed to evaluate the program.
02 · My contribution
From listening to implementation.
I worked across research, service definition, UX design, and delivery. The project began during my time at Bridgeable and continued at the NORC Innovation Centre.
- Interviewed stakeholders and frontline staff to understand their needs and tensions.
- Helped map the current journey and define the desired experience.
- Designed and facilitated co-design, then tested and iterated on prototypes.
- Supported incremental releases, training, and post-launch feedback.
- Stepped into a design-lead role during implementation, coordinating stakeholder feedback and working with leadership and privacy teams.
With no dedicated technical team, I also learned coding, database management, and data visualization to help turn the design into a working solution.
03 · The process
A service shaped with the people delivering it.
We moved from shared understanding to small releases, keeping staff and stakeholders involved throughout.
Sep–Dec 2023
Immerse & understand
An environmental scan, client documentation, a kick-off meeting, and one-to-one interviews revealed the current journey, key tensions, and desired outcomes.
Jan 2024
Define together
In co-design, we explored two contrasting scenarios: a technology-heavy service and a largely manual one. That helped surface priorities and decide where digital tools could help.
Feb–Jun 2024
Design & release
We built core features in weekly sprints, tested prototypes remotely and in person, and used feedback to guide the next release.
Jul 2024–Aug 2025
Implement & support
Incremental launches, training sessions, storyboards, documentation, and post-launch interviews helped the tool become part of daily work.
04 · Designing for adoption
The rollout was part of the design.
Some staff were comfortable with paper workflows and hesitant about introducing technology. Governance and privacy reviews also took longer than expected. These realities shaped both the product and how we introduced it.
Make it familiar
Connect screens to real tasks through storyboards, scenarios, and training.
Build confidence
Release in increments, collect feedback, and respond to issues as staff begin using the tool.
Bring partners in
Work with leadership, privacy teams, and frontline staff throughout implementation.
Rather than treating adoption as a final handoff, we kept listening and adjusting as the service evolved.
05 · What changed
A working tool for everyday care.
The portal shipped and was actively used by staff. It brought common tasks and information together, with structured templates for documentation and clearer access to resources.
- Frontline work: more structured data collection and easier resource finding.
- Care coordination: a reviewed and automated clinical referral process for the Health & Wellness team.
- Program evaluation: support for collecting consistent information and generating reports.
- Shared understanding: co-design and journey mapping helped staff and leadership discuss tensions and priorities.
The project received an SDN Award in the 2024 Student Category.
06 · What I learned
Context is where a service succeeds.
A screen can make sense in a prototype and still struggle in someone’s working day. Showing how the tool fits into real situations was essential to building confidence and supporting adoption.
I also learned how service design can bridge frontline experience and leadership decisions. The work stretched my role beyond research and interfaces into negotiation, technical delivery, and supporting change.
Making an idea real means designing for the people who will carry it forward.