Hinge Health

More than 1 of 4 Americans age 65+ fall each year.
I designed a game combining cognitive challenges with physical balance exercises and improved average exercise adherence by 56%.
This, in turn, reduced falls by 40% and improved member balance scores by 23%.

Catherine Winfield

VP Product Design

Hinge Health

"From creating functional web prototypes to crafting vision narratives, Darcy has championed the integration of AI into the design process."

AI Ambassador for the Design Org

Design Vision through Storytelling

I produced a design vision in Figma that I presented to our company board. It was so successful, it spawned a marketing campaign around my protagonist, Frannie. My vision was also scaled to the junior designers in the organization and used as a model for storytelling in other feature areas.

My Design vision for older adults • 7 min

Identifying Opportunity through Research

Using chatGPT and the Consensus Search plugin to search peer reviewed studies, I identified dual-tasking as a clinically validated approach to reduce falls in the elderly.

Our Existing Exercises Were Too Boring

Adding a cognitive task could improve balance and make it more fun.

Prototyping Exercises + Mini Brain Games

Before chatGPT it took weeks to create and then test my first few game ideas. None was compelling enough when tested with members.

A Compelling Daily Habit

My product manager mentioned his mom was a trivia buff...

ChatGPT for Trivia.

I asked it to generate 100 trivia questions for adults over 65.

Within a few hours I had exercise game that required the member to stand on one leg while answering trivia questions.

Testing the Idea

2 rounds of usability testing
5-6 participants per round
65-80 year olds
100% successful completion of the game
75% would play again

"Yeah, that was quite fun... I do have balance issues, and I'm also quite good when it comes to sort of general knowledge and I hope to be challenged... I found that quite fascinating."

— 65-year-old participant with multiple sclerosis

Scaling the Design

Visual Design

Next I added the visual design and video loops, all accelerated with AI as my prototyping assistant.

Wider Appeal

I realized that the true experience of the game is answering the questions, and so enlisted my team in using chatGPT to help generate a bank of inclusive trivia questions to keep our members' challenged daily.

Accessibility

I also added an easier tandem stance to enable lower ability seniors access to the game, with the eventual goal to graduate them to single leg stances.

Try the Prototype

Test your balance and your trivia skills.

Try it

Results

Over half of our active users are now balancing on a leg and doing trivia at least once a week. Approximately twenty percent of them are doing it every other day or daily. Single-leg standing is a higly effective leg strengthening exercise and fall prevention strategy, and our members are logging hundreds of minutes doing this simple but engaging game.

More than 1 of 4 Americans age 65+ fall each year.
I designed a game combining cognitive challenges with physical balance exercises and improved average exercise adherence by 56%.
This, in turn, reduced falls by 40% and improved member balance scores by 23%.

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