Designing for Dignity

What would passive monitoring for older adults look like if nobody had to wear a device or remember it was there?Frank McDermott's 98-year-old grandmother-in-law won't leave the Augusta, Georgia, home she's lived in for 50 years, and her laundry room is in the basement. Now a smart plug down there tells the family when she goes down the stairs and when she comes back up. She's forgotten it's there. The free alert pendant his 97-year-old uncle-in-law got in independent living is still in the box.In this episode of Designing for Dignity, host Erin Young talks with Frank McDermott, founder and CEO of DAR.WIN, which turned the Wi-Fi chips in ordinary smart plugs into passive monitoring with no wearables and no cameras.We recorded this before DAR.WIN closed in August, after its core hardware provider entered the market as a direct competitor. We're publishing it because Frank's lessons on building for older adults hold up, and he's candid about all of it.Frank explains why home safety tech kept stalling: pendants have to be worn and pressed, home automation takes "a PhD in computer science," installed sensors could cost $2,000 to $3,000 per residence, and nobody wants a camera in the bathroom. DAR.WIN's answer was four plugs, a 15-minute setup, a morning email when someone wakes up, and a text after four hours without movement.For founders, his sharpest lesson is a question: am I an inventor or an entrepreneur? The difference, he says, is how many customers you talk to. As software gets cheaper to build, he argues the real test is the discipline not to build.💡 What you'll learnWhy pendants, cameras, and installed sensors stalled on stigma, setup, cost, and privacyHow Wi-Fi sensing in four smart plugs tracked movement between rooms without wearablesWhat a morning wake-up email did for adult children living hours awayHow customer feedback became a font size toggle that shipped in seven minutesThe readiness bar for caregiver attribution: 99% confidence across thousands of testsWhy Frank visits one of 600 senior care communities near home every week with coffee and donuts💪 About Frank McDermottFrank McDermott has built software for more than 25 years. He's CEO and co-founder of Caravan Interactive, which he started in 2010 as one of New York's first iPhone app companies. He founded DAR.WIN after his father's heart attack in rural upstate New York and spent four years developing it before closing the company in 2026. He's based in Atlanta.Frank McDermott on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankmcdermott/Caravan Interactive: https://crvn.net🔗 Mentioned in this episodeFrank's post on why DAR.WIN closed: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7484988602167296001/The free 21-Day Email Course from Slide UX: https://slideux.com/agetech-ux-course⏱️ Chapters00:00 Introduction00:27 Why DAR.WIN closed before this episode aired05:46 Why pendants, cameras, and home sensors missed10:24 How smart plugs became passive monitoring15:56 A 98-year-old and her basement laundry room30:54 Shipping a font size toggle in seven minutes42:40 Coffee, donuts, and 600 senior care communities52:28 Inventor or entrepreneur56:50 The discipline not to build when software is cheap1:02:34 Outro🔔 Stay connectedJoin the Slide UX newsletter: https://slideux.com/newsletterFollow Slide UX on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/slide-ux/

What separates the brain health startups that last from the ones that raise big and flame out?In 1988, Steve Ardire's older brother had surgery for a brain tumor, and for 26 years his MRIs came back normal. In 2016, the tumor regrew about two and a half months after a clean scan, and the second surgery left him with less mobility. It shaped how Steve sees neurotech: a product that stops at detection has done half its job.In this episode of Designing for Dignity, host Erin Young talks with Steve Ardire, strategic advisor at Vibes AI, a neurotechnology company that reads cognitive state from a 30-second voice check-in and responds with personalized sound.Steve says the team carries about 60% of a funding decision, and he won't advise founders who lack any of his five must-haves: authenticity and trust, chemistry, passion and empathy, resilience, and fluid conversation. The most common mistake he sees is founders choosing advisors who tell them what they want to hear. Erin carries that into user research, where a founder who interrupts a participant to defend the product loses the insight that could have saved it. Steve also walks through the closed loop model behind Vibes AI: measure a person's state, intervene, then reassess and adjust.About Steve ArdireSteve is a strategic advisor at Vibes AI and an independent advisor to neurotech and holistic wellness startups. He has spent more than 30 years advising dozens of AI and health tech companies. At 70, he took on the byline Super Ager.Steve Ardire on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sardire/Vibes AI: https://getvibes.ai/Chapters00:00 Introduction03:43 His brother's brain tumor and why early detection matters08:56 What brain health startups need: team and five must-haves13:08 How Steve joined Vibes AI15:17 Voice biomarkers and life after an early signal20:28 Closed loop systems: measure, intervene, reassess22:58 Equity and your zip code27:01 Advisors who challenge founders29:52 Hearing user feedback without selling35:05 Health span and where technology fails aging40:55 Where to find Steve42:03 OutroDesigning for Dignity is a podcast from Slide UX about how design shapes autonomy, connection, and quality of life for people navigating aging, brain change, and care.Join the Slide UX newsletter: https://slideux.com/newsletter

Why does so much technology built for older adults look like it was designed for a four-year-old?Erin went looking for a fidget product for her dad, who had advanced Alzheimer's disease and kept trying to take apart the mechanics of his wheelchair. Almost everything she found was oversized and primary-colored, made for a toddler. It is the physical version of something that ships in software every week.On this episode of Designing for Dignity, Erin Young talks with Kunal Parikh, an independent consultant in AgeTech and health technology innovation. Kunal traces infantilizing design back to a society that measures people by productivity, then names the four places it shows up: visual design, language, interaction patterns, and device form factor. His diagnosis is that it happens when a team hasn't talked to enough people. A few friends and your parents is not a sample size.He also makes a case most AgeTech business models are built against. If a product's job is to strengthen someone's ability to manage their own health, its goal is to make itself unnecessary.WHAT YOU'LL LEARNWhy caregiving is logistical labor as much as emotional laborThe four places infantilizing design shows up, and how to catch it in your own workWhat gamification looks like when it is built for adults, with progression and real goalsThe guardrails passive monitoring needs before it belongs in someone's home, from geofencing to a dignity modeKunal's three layers of consent, and what breaks when a product collapses them into one checkboxEngagement load units, a way to budget the attention your product spends for a care partnerWhy the family WhatsApp group beats most care coordination platformsABOUT KUNAL PARIKHKunal Parikh is a consultant in AgeTech and health technology innovation. He practiced medicine in India before moving into digital health, and holds a master's in Aging and Health from Queen's University for award-winning research on virtual caregiver training. He teaches at Algonquin College and gave a TEDx talk called "Did You Know You Are A Caregiver?" He is writing a book on the ethics and equity of aging, caregiving, and the technology built for both.Kunal on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kunalparikh6CHAPTERS(00:00) Introduction(01:33) Why a physician left clinical practice(04:10) Coordinating care from another country(07:23) Logistical labor and emotional labor(12:10) A fidget product made for toddlers(13:09) Four ways AgeTech infantilizes(15:51) Productivity, personhood, and value(17:00) How Erin prepares for brain change(19:23) Gamification built for adults(23:17) Overt monitoring and covert monitoring(27:59) Consent decay and meaningful consent(31:21) Where medical and tech ethics meet(34:55) Designing to make itself unnecessary(37:58) Engagement load units(42:53) When a founder is ready for help(53:31) Where to find KunalABOUT THE SHOWDesigning for Dignity is a podcast from Slide UX about how design shapes autonomy, connection, and quality of life for people navigating aging, brain change, and care.Newsletter: http://slideux.com/newsletterSlide UX on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/slide-uxTopics: AgeTech, brain change, family caregiving, consent, infantilization, passive monitoring, data governance, digital health

What happens when a family plans for care and the plan falls apart in a week?Holly Larson spent two decades writing about technology for some of the largest companies in the world. Then her father was injured on a trip to Italy, and she and her sister found themselves running a care system at warp speed with no map for it. Nine years later they are still at it.Out of that came Family Care Horizons, a care planning and decision architecture that helps families move from crisis-driven care to something they can sustain. Holly mapped more than 369 distinct tasks that families absorb when care begins, then built a framework to help them see the work, weigh its emotional intensity, and divide it fairly before a crisis forces the decision.In this episode of Designing for Dignity, Erin Young and Holly get into why families end up as the integration layer of the healthcare system, what employers keep missing about elder care, and where CareTech is building for a buyer who does not exist.WHAT YOU'LL LEARNWhy families become the care system rather than receiving oneHow the care load framework surfaces work that stays invisibleWhat dignity guardrails are and how families set themWhy communication is the most neglected part of any family care systemHow care archetypes help families assign roles to strengthsWhat employers get wrong when they treat elder care as a benefits line itemWhy the most stressed caregivers are the least likely to adopt CareTechWhat agency looks like for a family caregiver, and how it gets lostABOUT HOLLY LARSONHolly Larson is the creator of Family Care Horizons, a set of decision frameworks for family caregiving and elder care. She is a B2B technology content writer with more than twenty years of experience, and she came to care work through her own family. For nine years she and her sister have coordinated care for their father through acute crises, medical rehab, home care during the pandemic, and assisted living. She writes five times a week as Your Chief Care Officer.Holly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hollyklarsonCHAPTERS(00:00) Introduction(01:02) From B2B tech writing to care systems(02:12) Italy, and two years of medical chaos(05:41) The gap in how families decide(07:42) The care load: 369 hidden tasks(11:56) Care burden, gender, cognitive load(14:16) Dignity guardrails(17:14) Care archetypes and family roles(19:54) When to start a proactive care plan(22:12) Care stability signals and drift(24:01) The caregiver who does not exist(26:26) Treating care as a system(30:57) Communication, the neglected piece(33:56) What employers get wrong(38:20) Where CareTech solves the wrong problem(41:34) Making the care system visible(43:54) Where design is most absent(47:34) Nine years in: what she wishes she knew(48:29) Care support 10 years from now(52:15) Where to find HollyABOUT THE SHOWDesigning for Dignity is a podcast from Slide UX about how thoughtful design can enhance autonomy, connection, and quality of life for people navigating aging or brain change.Newsletter: http://slideux.com/newsletterSlide UX on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/slide-uxTopics: family caregiving, care planning, elder care, dementia, caregiver burnout, CareTech, AgeTech

What does it take to truly understand the people you are designing for in aging and care?It starts with listening. And few people have been listening longer or more closely than Nicole Will.In this episode of Designing for Dignity, Erin Young speaks with Nicole Will, founder of WillGather, a platform and podcast focused on aging, caregiving, and AgeTech. Nicole also works with Rendever, a VR platform addressing social isolation in older adults, and Lorenzo’s House, a nonprofit supporting families navigating younger-onset dementia.Nicole shares her journey from family caregiver at age 15 to gerontologist, registered nursing assistant, senior living leader, and now AgeTech advisor and podcast host with more than 240 episodes.The conversation explores how storytelling builds empathy before product decisions are made, what strong AgeTech teams consistently get right, and why caregiver experience needs to be understood in full, not in fragments.💡 What You’ll Learn• Why storytelling is foundational to empathy in AgeTech product design• What strong AgeTech teams consistently get right• How to identify and serve multiple user types in caregiving products• Why equity and access need to be designed in from the start• What ethical considerations matter when designing for vulnerable users• How VR is being used to address social isolation in care settings• What experienced caregivers want innovators to understand before building💪 About NicoleNicole is reshaping how we understand aging, caregiving, and connection. As an international thought leader, she is the founder of willGather and host of the top-rated willGather podcast, amplifying the voices of older adults, family caregivers, and professionals across the care economy. With a background in Social Gerontology, leadership in senior living, and her own family caregiving experience, Nicole blends heart and strategy to challenge assumptions and illuminate what’s possible when dignity leads the way. She serves as Development & Strategic Partnerships Lead for Lorenzo’s House, leads Marketing & Strategic Partnerships at Rendever, and supports organizations, where she helps guide conversations that push the industry forward. • Website: https://www.willgather.com/• Podcast: https://www.willgatherpodcast.com/• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-will-0a33a930/• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WillGather-1132074970266544• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/willgather/• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/myEventConnect🖼️ Rendever is overcoming social isolation through the power of VR and shared experiences.• https://rendever.com🏠 Lorenzo’s House empowers families living with younger-onset dementia through an array of free holistic support, ensuring we walk this journey united – never alone.• https://www.lorenzoshouse.org/