Sweet & Sour (Concept)

Sweet & Sour app screens: the "Sweet & Sour Conversations" welcome screen, conversation topics, an AI practice chat, and a parent’s profile.
Timeline
Sep 2025 - Dec 2025
Role
Product Designer
Team
1 Product Manager
3 Product Designers
My impact
UX Research
Design Systems
AI Design
Prototyping

Overview

Designing a platform for end-of-life dialogues within family members

Aging and care planning are universal realities, but talking about them with our loved ones is incredibly uncomfortable. While most people agree these conversations are crucial, they constantly delay them because they do not know how to start without causing tension or sadness.

Solution

A virtual platform that provides users with personalized guidance and pre-conversation preparation for future conversations about death and legacy.

Our initial assumption

Families completely avoid end of life planning because it is too awkward

User Surveys

20 participants obtained through word of mouth and shared communities

User Interviews

5 participants across Zoom. Recruited through university channels

Secondary research

Collected through research papers on death and family dynamics

Usability Test & Critique

Many pivots after listening to feedback!

The reality check: 80% of families talk logistics, but crave depth

Four research methods revealed that family conversations about death tend to be practical rather than emotional, triggered by crises, and shaped by family norms, birth order, and religion.

Conversations happen, but vary in depth and purpose.Emotional openness is situational and often triggered by external events.Comfort depends on family norms and communication style.Birth-order and/or family roles affect the communication style in families.Religion can impact the way people perceive death and legacy.

Design

Thinking outside the box

When we first started coming up with ideas of solutions, we explored the concept of doing family activities (like games) to facilitate these conversations.

A whiteboard covered in sticky notes from our brainstorm.A teammate arranging paper sketches on a whiteboard.

Attempting to turn "sour to sweet" through a gamified wine-brewing app

This concept encourages families who are living apart to participate in difficult conversations about death and legacy and provides an incentive through a physical customized wine/beverage.

Wine-brewing concept: picking conversation topics, a family group chat, and a custom wine ready to order.

Pivot 1: Peer review reveals the wine metaphor is culturally exclusive

During design critiques, peer feedback highlighted a major flaw: wine brewing is not globally or culturally inclusive. For many families, alcohol carries religious, cultural, or personal taboos that would alienate the exact users we wanted to support. We realized the metaphor itself was creating a barrier.

Recipe concept: picking topics, a Health proxy guide, and a personalized conversation recipe.

Pivot 2: Usability testing reveals users don't want a game at all

We took the recipe prototype into usability testing, and the feedback was a definitive wake-up call. The metaphor completely confused people. They did not want an intellectual detour or a playful game to talk about death.

"Is this a recipe about how to have the conversation, or is this a recipe about what to eat?"

—P3, rated the Plan a Conversation feature 5/5 difficulty

Reflection

If I did this project again, I would…

Get the AI principles down

I would dedicate more time to AI design principles to ensure the product followed best practices. With topics as sensitive as death, safety and privacy concerns surfaced across all testing methods. Our number one priority would be to address this to help with adoption.

Build a rapid prototype

We bounced around ideas for a prototype LM that could simulate a conversation, but due to time constraints we could not complete this. I believe building a functional conversational prototype earlier to test for edge cases would inform stronger design decisions.