Dispatch
Reimagining Hospital Bedside Communication Hardware
Role
Research Lead, Product Designer
Timeline
2025
Team
4 members
Skills
Physical Design, User Research, Prototyping,
Universal Design
Background
This project was created for Protothon 2026,
a 24-hour UX design challenge.
The goal was to design a platform that helps homeowners
find, evaluate, and connect with the right interior designer.
Context
The remodeling market is large. The decision-making process is broken.
This project was created for Protothon 2026, a 24-hour UX design challenge. The brief asked teams to design a platform that connects homeowners with interior designers. Through initial research, three data points were identified that reframed the problem — the challenge was not discovery, but confidence.
39%
Use Pinterest as a search engine
Homeowners rely on images to explore style before they can describe it in words.
Visual intent precedes verbal clarity
Source: Pinterest research
$600B
U.S. remodeling market size
Without a cost reference point, most first conversations began with mismatched expectations.
Scaled demand, unscaled process
Source: Harvard JCHS Housing Report
20%
Struggled to get a clear estimate
A large and growing market still largely dependent on referrals, guesswork, and informal process.
Cost ambiguity delays commitment
Source: Houzz Renovation Trends 2026
Planning
We established project planning through client collaboration and comprehensive research on healthcare technology design.
A primary persona was defined to ground the sprint. Emily represents the homeowner who is ready to renovate but stalls before making first contact — a pattern identified as the central design problem.
I know what I like when I see it, but I don’t know how to explain it or who can actually bring it to life.
About
43 years old
Mother of two
Planning her first major home renovation
Behaviors
Saves inspiration from Pinterest and Instagram
Compares designer portfolios and reviews
Relies on recommendations before reaching out
Pain Points
Can recognize styles visually, but struggles to describe them
Unsure what renovation costs should realistically look like
Finds it difficult to confidently choose the right designer
Key Insight
Emily has a clear visual taste, but lacks the confidence and language to make decisions
Key Insight
Homeowners arrive prepared. The process itself creates the friction.
Mapping the homeowner journey revealed a consistent pattern: strong motivation and visual taste on one side — no structured path to act on either on the other. The gap was not desire, but infrastructure.
What homeowners bring
Visual Preference
Homeowners respond emotionally to spaces long before they know the correct design vocabulary.
Budget Awareness
Users want realistic expectations before reaching out, not after a consultation begins.
Designer Compatibility
People look for signals that a designer understands their lifestyle, taste, and project scale.
Where the process breaks down
No reliable trust layer
Portfolios show outcomes, but rarely explain budget alignment, execution quality, or process transparency.
No Cost Confidence
Most platforms surface inspiration without helping users understand realistic project costs.
Weak Matching Signals
Homeowners are forced to judge designers through fragmented signals like Instagram posts, referrals, or inconsistent reviews.
Four friction points were identified. Four goals were set.
Four design goals were established — each targeted at a specific point where homeowners lost confidence and disengaged from the process.
01
Taste Finding
An image-based preference flow was designed to translate visual instinct into a communicable aesthetic profile — no design vocabulary required.
02
Budget
A cost-framing tool was introduced early in onboarding, generating realistic project ranges from ZIP code, home type, and scope.
03
Trust
Designer profiles were restructured to surface compatibility signals — budget alignment, project type history, and client review patterns.
Solution
Haven was designed
to front-load clarity.
A two-phase flow was designed — onboarding first, matching second. By the time a recommendation appeared, the homeowner's taste, budget, and project context had already been established.
The focus was not on broader discovery, but on compressing the gap between inspiration and first contact.
Phase 1
Onboarding
Self-understanding before any designer is introduced
01
Taste Discovery
A visual selection flow was designed to build an aesthetic profile through image-based choices. Pinterest import was supported to leverage existing inspiration.
02
Budget Framing
A cost estimation model was surfaced at onboarding, generating a realistic project range from ZIP code, home type, and scope before any designer was introduced.
Phase 2
Matching
Context-informed recommendations, not open browsing
03
Project Setup
A structured project brief was collected and attached to the homeowner's profile — eliminating the need to re-explain goals across multiple conversations.
04
Budget Framing
A shortlist of three to five designers was generated with explicit match reasoning across style, budget, and project type — replacing open browsing with context-informed selection.
If time is allowed…
Run a 4-6 week pilot in an actual hospital unit
Build a modular system that works with both battery and cable power
Design a mount that works with different hospital furniture
Modify the system for critical situations
Key Learnings
This project went beyond typical digital design, requiring us to manage multiple stakeholders, healthcare constraints, and end-to-end delivery of a physical hardware system. Leading the process from research to prototype taught me how to navigate real-world project management and adapt under complex constraints.
If time is allowed…
Run a 4-6 week pilot in an actual hospital unit
Build a modular system that works with both battery and cable power
Design a mount that works with different hospital furniture
Modify the system for critical situations
Key Learnings
This project went beyond typical digital design, requiring us to manage multiple stakeholders, healthcare constraints, and end-to-end delivery of a physical hardware system. Leading the process from research to prototype taught me how to navigate real-world project management and adapt under complex constraints.