Heard

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Inspiration

We started with a simple problem: some patients are in real physical discomfort before it becomes obvious, and before they can clearly say what’s wrong.

In long-term care, dementia care, and post-stroke recovery, caregivers often have to rely on visible distress or spoken complaints. But hidden discomfort does not always show up that way. We wanted to imagine a tool that helps caregivers notice those quieter signals earlier.

What it does

Heard is a speculative early-warning interoception tool for nurses and doctors. It helps caregivers notice hidden physical discomfort earlier, even when patients cannot clearly say what is wrong.

It helps caregivers:

see who needs attention
understand what may be happening
see why a case was flagged
know what to do next

In our demo, Heard supports four patient stories:

Harold: possible hygiene-related discomfort
Eleanor: sudden one-sided distress pattern needing urgent review
James: discomfort easing back toward baseline
Dorothy: stable, no action needed

How we built it

We built Heard in the Figma ecosystem as a speculative software application and presented it through Figma Slides.

We kept the product flow simple:

Overview shows who needs attention
Signal explains what Heard is noticing
Action shows what the caregiver should do next

We designed it to reduce overload. Instead of showing a lot of raw data, Heard focuses on four questions:

Who needs attention?
What does Heard think is happening?
Why was it flagged?
What should happen next?

Challenges we ran into

Our biggest challenge was balancing a strong concept with clear language.

At first, some of our labels were too technical. They made sense to us, but not to a normal person seeing the project for the first time. We had to rewrite a lot so the product felt smart without being confusing.

Another challenge was making sure Heard did not sound like a diagnosis tool. We wanted it to flag hidden discomfort patterns early without overclaiming what the system knows.

We also spent a lot of time making the UI feel both beautiful and useful.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud that Heard feels original but still grounded in a real human need.

We’re especially proud of:

building the concept around interoception
keeping the interface simple and easy to follow
creating four patient stories that show different types of use
using plain language instead of hiding behind jargon
designing the product with safeguards and restraint

We’re also proud that Heard is not just about urgent alerts. It can also show when care is working or when no action is needed.

What we learned

We learned that a good speculative product still has to be easy to understand.

We also learned that language matters a lot. Some of our biggest improvements came from replacing technical phrases with plain-English explanations.

Another big lesson was that strong UX usually comes from doing less, not more. We did not need more screens or more features. We needed a clearer flow and better prioritization.