Melissa is a Product Designer

1. Project Overview

A solo founder approached us with a thoughtful idea. He wanted to create a simple way for seniors to get tech help without relying entirely on their adult children. His solution was a prepaid concierge tech support hotline.

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‍Our job was to help him validate the concept through research, and create a cohesive brand and landing page to match.

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2. The Problem

Older adults often need help with small, frustrating tech issues. But they hesitate to ask their kids for fear of being a burden.

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Meanwhile, adult children feel pulled between love and exhaustion, trying to squeeze in "tech support" visits. This created an opportunity to design a lightweight, low-friction solution for both parties.

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3. Defining Success

Our MVP needed to:

Clearly explain the service in under 30 seconds
Build trust with two audiences at once
Validate the business model before building anything complex

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We aligned on three outputs:

A research-backed landing page
A memorable, approachable brand
A clear validation plan to test interest and conversion

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4. Persona Development

Before beginning interviews, I reviewed early research notes that the founder had collected. I used ChatGPT to analyze the data and identify key patterns.

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From this, I created four user personas that reflected both seniors and their adult children. Each persona highlighted different levels of tech comfort, emotional needs, and support capacity. These helped shape the tone and direction of the product.

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5. Design Exploration & Research

We led a series of collaborative workshops with the founder to shape the foundation of the brand and product. Each session helped clarify the voice, audience, and experience we wanted to create. The goal was to build something that felt human, useful, and easy to trust.

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We started with a naming workshop that explored friendly and approachable options. We checked for domain availability and potential trademark conflicts. In the positioning workshop, we mapped out the core benefits and emotional value of the service.

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The name we landed on was TESS. It stands for Tech Empowerment Service for Seniors. We paired it with the phrase "Just Call Tess" to give the brand a voice that felt warm and direct. It sounded like something a real person would say and created an instant sense of comfort.

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Lastly, we held a mood boarding session to define the visual tone. We explored three distinct directions before landing on a style that felt calm, modern, and reassuring.

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We conducted ten user interviews. Eight were with adult children and two were with older adults. I used ChatGPT to help build the research plan and design the interview guide. The goal was to validate the need for the product and explore different pricing models.

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The research showed that seniors preferred talking to a real person instead of using another app. Adult children felt relief at the idea of not being the only source of tech support. Everyone responded well to the prepaid model. It felt simple, flexible, and easy to gift. Most importantly, we learned this product was not just about tech help. It was about building confidence and offering peace of mind.

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6. Final Solution

We delivered a test-ready MVP toolkit:

Brand identity with a calm, human-centered visual style
Logo design that felt modern yet friendly
Responsive landing page designed to test messaging and pricing with real users
Validation strategy focused on early learnings, not perfection
Confirmed prepaid minutes as the most preferred pricing model

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The landing page introduced the concept in plain language, broke down how prepaid minutes worked, and included clear CTAs for both gift-givers and seniors.

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