The Problem Space
The Senior Dilemma
The Murcia region has one of the highest active aging demographics in Spain. According to the 'la Caixa' Foundation, unwanted loneliness is a public health challenge. It stems not just from lack of contact, but from the loss of an active social role after retirement.
The Student Reality
With over 50,000 university students in the region, university guidance services report a massive wave of pre-market anxiety. Students suffer from a "practical void"—they have academic theory but lack real-world guidance and mentorship.
The Insight: Mutual Reciprocity
Seniors face isolation feeling disconnected. Students face anxiety entering the workforce. They live in the same city but rarely exchange experiences. Lazos directly connects local senior professionals with university students. Seniors provide practical market advice, regaining their social role, while students help bridge the digital divide for seniors.
Overcoming Research Constraints
Initial plans to survey universities and senior care centers were blocked by GDPR regulations and months-long bureaucratic hurdles. To gather data ethically and on time, I pivoted the research strategy to convenience sampling in organic socialization environments.
Seniors (Guerrilla Testing)
Conducted in-person interviews at a local Bingo hall in Murcia, facilitated by family intermediaries to establish trust and ensure spontaneous, honest responses.
Students (Digital Communities)
Disseminated surveys through strategic digital communities, such as Erasmus Facebook groups in Murcia, ensuring a diverse reach within the academic profile.
User Research Findings
Intrinsic Motivation
High desire to teach, share life experiences, and feel useful. Rated the value of these chats 8-10/10.
UI Preferences
Strong preference (98%) for simple screens with very large, visible buttons and low cognitive load. Dislike cluttered interfaces.
Logistics
Ideal call duration is 15-30 minutes. Prefer afternoons or evenings.
Persona: Doña María (70)
Retired Nurse
"I spent 40 years caring for patients. I want to share my practical experience with young nurses, but I fear complex technology."
Pragmatic Goals
Seek real-world career advice from mentors in their specific field. Mentor credibility (CV and photo) is crucial.
Gamification & UI
Preference for a richer UI (79%) with blogs, badges, and recognition that can be added to their resumes.
Logistics & Constraints
Strict schedules demand pre-scheduled appointments. As students, they overwhelmingly prefer a Freemium model with ads (72%).
Persona: Javier (21)
3rd Year Nursing Student
"I need practical, realistic mentoring to gain confidence before my clinical practices, but I have very little free time or money."
Competitive Gap
Senior Lingua
Focused on languages. Fails due to excessive ads and notifications that irritate senior users.
Adopta Un Abuelo
Purely charity/emotional support. Asks for donations, driving away low-income students.
Tandem
Global connection, but cluttered interface and dating-app vibe creates insecurity.
The Lazos Difference: We focus on real professional exchange and purpose, avoiding pure charity models and cluttered generic interfaces.
UX Strategy: Progressive Disclosure
How do we build one app for two completely different user groups? Seniors need large buttons and extreme simplicity, while students want features, rankings, and gamification. The solution is Progressive Disclosure based on user profiles.
Lazos
Welcome, Doña María 👵
Javier
Nursing Student
Senior UI
High contrast, large touch targets, single-action focus.
Lazos
Hello, Javier 👨🎓
Student UI
Gamification, scheduling features, and freemium upgrade paths.
Try the Interactive Prototypes
Test the progressive disclosure strategy yourself. Choose a profile below to interact with the prototypes hosted on Claude.
The Three Pillars of Lazos
Inclusive Design
Simplified paths, typography, and colors designed specifically for senior vision and motor coordination.
Purposeful Gamification
Students earn badges and academic recognition, transforming time spent into a resume differentiator.
Affective Responsibility
Seniors follow a student's journey into the job market. This creates a lasting legacy and a daily purpose to open the app.
Impact & Next Steps
Lazos is a technical and emotional solution to latent social challenges. By prioritizing affective responsibility and adaptive UI, it transforms seniors' professional trajectories into living human capital, filling gaps left by purely welfare-based models.
Official Partnerships
Formalize agreements with Universities and City Councils to convert mentorship hours into official academic credits.
Scalability
Expand beyond Murcia to other Spanish regions with similar demographic dynamics, and explore multilingual support.