mitraa is a mobile platform that helps Indian adults over 55 discover, join and host local social events — guided by Miro, an AI companion built for people who know what they want to do but not how to start.
01 — Overview
India will be home to roughly 319 million people aged 60 and above by 2050 — every fifth Indian a senior citizen. The national conversation about that shift is almost entirely about health and money. This thesis argues the harder, more neglected problem is the emotional and social architecture of later life.
The research began where most Indian design research does — in a specific, ordinary memory. An elderly couple lived next door to my family in Patna. The husband was paralysed, the wife semi-bedridden. Their children, in another city, paid for a nurse twice a day and a house-help for meals. When either was unavailable, food arrived at the door and stayed there, because neither of them could collect it.
Their children would call my mother. She would go over, help them eat, and stay a little longer to talk. Their home was usually latched from the outside. Both have since passed away. What stayed with me was not the physical dependence — it was how thoroughly the emotional dependence went unnamed by everyone involved.
Recurring social touchpoints that reduce isolation — built as rituals, not programmes.
Space to express skill and hold an identity beyond the caregiver or retiree role.
Structured activity that becomes part of a daily routine rather than an optional addition to it.
mitraa — from mitra, friend. Scope deliberately excludes medical intervention, geriatric care and disability management; it addresses emotional wellness, engagement and cultural empowerment within the existing capacities of its users.
02 — Problem statement
A pattern surfaced across every conversation, survey response and observation: elderly individuals are not lonely because they lack people. They are lonely because they lack purpose, participation and a sense of being needed.
With urban migration accelerating and nuclear families becoming the norm, the support structures that once kept elders embedded in social life have fractured. Elders who were the axis around which a household turned have gradually become its quietest residents. They perform happiness because it is easier than explaining the alternative.
The loss of a daily role, the shrinking of peer circles, the slow disappearance of the routines that gave a day its shape — these are not medical problems. They are design problems. The opportunity is not in healthcare or welfare. It is in belonging, purpose and structured social engagement.
They say sab theek hai. Everything is fine. Thesis — Problem definition
03 — Research & insights
Primary research combined an interview with a geriatric psychiatrist, an interview with an elderly shelter-home administrator, conversational surveys with elderly residents in Bengaluru, ethnographic observation in community parks, and structured surveys with young adults living away from their parents — triangulated against government and NGO desk research.
Observation at a Bengaluru park revealed a sharp contrast. Elderly men had morning yoga groups and evening carrom circles — social connection, mental stimulation, a channel for stories, a buffer against loneliness.
Elderly women largely did not. Their engagement stayed indoors, restricted to a spouse or phone calls, with identity still tied to care roles and rituals. This gap is a recurring theme in Indian gerontology literature, and it directly shaped two product decisions: the women-only filter and skill badges.
Retirement often triggers a sharp decline in mental stimulation. Dr. Meena Medikonda, geriatric psychiatrist
Her core finding: emotional isolation emerges not from physical solitude but from reduced responsibility, lack of routine and diminished purpose. Elders hesitate to express needs because they do not want to burden their children.
Many residents long for a familiar face at the gate, but the gate stays mostly empty. Alex Paul, shelter home administrator
Between 60 and 80% of his residents need daily assistance. Most families pay the fees but rarely visit. Micro-engagement activities like candle-making brought real joy, and were discontinued for want of staff.
03b — The numbers
The joint family has not vanished — but a third of elders now live without a spouse present, or entirely alone.
Source: HelpAge India, Ageing in India: Exploring Preparedness & Response to Care Challenges (2022).
Financial, clinical and digital exclusion compound each other — and none of them are what elders named first.
Sources: NITI Aayog senior care reforms report (2022); Longitudinal Ageing Study of India. General-population internet use is roughly 50%.
Depressive symptoms are present in nearly a third of the elderly population. The prevalence of probable depression is close to ten times higher than self-reported diagnoses — the condition is widespread and largely unnamed.
Source: Longitudinal Ageing Study of India, via NITI Aayog (2022).
04 — Personas
Each persona represents a distinct profile within the 55+ audience, drawn from observation, survey responses and interview material. Each one also exposes a different gap in the product.
Persona 01
64 · Bengaluru · Retired banker · Widower, lives alone
“I’m not one for apps — but my daughter trusts it.”
Persona 02
61 · Bengaluru · Former entrepreneur · Grandchildren’s caregiver
“I feel like just ‘Arjun’s mom’. I want to feel like myself again.”
Persona 03
69 & 62 · Bengaluru 33 years · Empty nesters
“Our children are settled far away; Bengaluru still needs to feel like home.”
Journey maps were built for all three personas across awareness, onboarding, discovery, joining an event, creating an event and ongoing use — tracking actions, thoughts, emotions, pain points, opportunities and Miro touchpoints at each stage.
Qualitative sentiment curves transcribed from the journey maps in the source deck. These describe the shape of each persona’s emotional arc as documented in research — they are not measured quantitative data.
All three personas need to know who will be there before committing. A visible attendee count and age-range preview measurably reduces social anxiety.
A linked profile and joint-join feature would serve the large share of 55+ users who experience social life as a unit rather than as individuals.
Safety filters and expertise visibility determine whether this segment uses the platform at all. Not optional enhancements.
A one-tap connection prompt immediately after an event closes the gap between shared activity and actual friendship.
Menka is interrupted by childcare; Jitendra tires quickly. Short-session support reduces drop-off at the most critical acquisition moment.
All three personas settle into routines. Recurring events remove the friction of sustained hosting and reinforce daily structure.
05 — Process, IA & user flow
Early concepts defaulted to elaborate digital features, forgetting that the user base includes people who struggle with basic app navigation. Every feature was then stress-tested against one question: can a 65-year-old with basic WhatsApp familiarity use this without help? Anything more than three taps deep, or that assumed digital confidence, was redesigned or removed.
Several early directions framed elders as recipients of care — people who needed helping. Field research contradicted this flatly. Every participant expressed a desire to contribute, to be useful, to give rather than only receive. The final concept positions elders as hosts, organisers, teachers and cultural contributors, not beneficiaries.
Designed around a single constraint: no screen is more than three taps from the home screen. Four bottom-navigation sections, three persistent header icons, and one shared destination.
Miro floats over the entire IA — it accelerates navigation rather than replacing it. Users who prefer to browse can ignore it entirely.
Both flows converge on the Event Page. This was deliberate — the app effectively has one primary destination, and every other section is either a path to it or a management layer around it. Users learn one pattern, not three.
06 — Brand & design system
Four brand colours, each with a defined structural job. Every pairing was tested against WCAG AA before it was allowed into the interface — which is why Blaze Orange never carries body text.
The wordmark holds an arc above it — a horizon line, and the suggestion of shelter. Six approved lockups:
| Sample | Pairing | Ratio | Result | Usage rule |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aa Sample | White on Oxford Navy | 10.2:1 | ✓ AAA | Unrestricted, including body text |
| Aa Sample | White on Midnight Violet | 14.2:1 | ✓ AAA | Unrestricted, including body text |
| Aa Sample | White on Classic Crimson | 5.0:1 | ✓ AA | CTAs, labels, emphasis |
| Aa Sample | Midnight Violet on Blaze Orange | 4.6:1 | ✓ AA | The primary Miro button combination |
| Aa Sample | White on Blaze Orange | 3.1:1 | ✕ Fails | Never used for body text |
Discover experiences
Display and major headings. A serif carries the editorial, trustworthy register the audience responds to.
Find your next meaningful moment with friends.
Body text and labels, set at a 16pt default — above standard, to accommodate mild vision change.
Minimum touch target size follows accessibility guidance for users above 55, whose precision on small targets is lower than the general population. Usability testing later pushed this to 48pt.
07 — Design solution
High-fidelity screens applying the full system across both the joinee and organiser flows. The Dashboard was designed to feel like a morning notice board rather than a feed — Miro’s suggestions appear as gentle nudges, not algorithmic recommendations.
Hover or focus any screen to pan down its full length.
Phone-first with OTP. No password to remember or reset.
Photo is optional. Onboarding collects only what Miro needs to function.
A conversational card format, not a form. Park participants responded to conversation, not questionnaires.
A morning notice board. Memory photos sit at the top, reinforcing belonging and continuity.
Attendee count is visible without tapping — the single most requested reassurance in research.
The shared destination. Organiser view surfaces five actions in one scroll; the landmark pin answers “where exactly?”.
Two coexisting paths — Miro pre-fill for newcomers, manual entry for confident users. Same outcome, different effort.
Withdraw Participation was repositioned and given a confirmation dialog after one tester could not find it.
In-app calling sits directly in the list. Social context is header-level, never buried in a section.
Public and private details are visually separated, so users always know what others can see.
Navigation questions get answered in plain language — never a redirect to help documentation.
07b — AI intervention
A persistent, floating guide available on every screen. It removes the barrier between intent and action for a user group that often knows what it wants to do but does not know how to start.
A conversational quiz mapping interests, activity types, time of day, and comfort with indoor or outdoor settings. The profile persists across the whole journey.
Personalised event picks on the Dashboard, refreshed against evolving activity history.
A spoken or typed description becomes a fully pre-filled event form. Cognitive load drops from a blank form to a review — creation in under 60 seconds.
Any question about using the app, answered directly via the orange talk button on any screen.
After an attended event, Miro identifies other attendees worth adding, based on shared interests and proximity.
Photographs from past events resurface on the Dashboard, reinforcing identity, belonging and continuity over time.
08 — Interactive prototype
Prototype not loading? Some browsers and privacy extensions block third-party embeds.
09 — Testing, outcomes & learnings
Sessions ran in person with the prototype on a tablet. Participants completed tasks unassisted: signing up, finding and joining an event, and creating a new event using Miro. Each round fed directly into the next iteration.
Found: touch targets below 44pt were missed under normal use. Onboarding took too many screens — two participants abandoned mid-flow. The Miro button went unnoticed by three of six, because orange against the dark header was not immediately legible.
Fixed: all targets raised to 48pt. Onboarding cut to three essential screens with save-and-resume. Miro button given a pulsing ring for the first three sessions.
Found: the Event Page organiser view read as cluttered to two participants. The pricing field confused people — was zero required for a free event? One participant could not locate Withdraw Participation.
Fixed: secondary actions moved to an overflow menu. A Free/Paid toggle replaced the raw pricing field. Withdraw Participation repositioned with a confirmation dialog.
Found: five of six participants completed every critical task successfully. The sixth needed a single assist during event creation — asking how to set an event to free.
Judgement: noted but not classified as blocking. The toggle was visible; the participant had simply not noticed it.
Eight changes made and confirmed across the three rounds:
Restores daily structure, social routine and a sense of purpose after retirement, widowhood or family migration. Jitendra’s Saturday chess group is not entertainment. It is a reason to wake up with somewhere to be.
The platform makes proximity legible — surfacing that the woman in flat 4B and the retired professor in 9A share an interest in Carnatic music, after six years in the same building.
Reduces the caregiver guilt the surveys identified. Seeing a parent active, hosting and contributing changes the emotional register of distance.
These are not soft outcomes. They are the clinical predictors of better cognitive and physical health in ageing populations. On increased interaction, reduced loneliness and routine stability
Features identified during research and testing that fall outside this thesis but represent clear development priorities.
Alok and Nitu’s journey map makes the case. A significant share of the 55+ demographic experiences social life as a pair.
A view for adult children showing their parents’ activity — events attended, connections made, memories. Directly addresses caregiver guilt.
Several participants wanted to trade skills for help they need. A credit-based exchange adds an economic dignity layer.
A version for institutional care with guided programmes and trained facilitators, for an underserved population.
The ideation-phase concept connecting elder cultural expertise to GI-tagged product commerce. Where mitraa addresses social engagement, ROOTS addresses economic dignity.
India’s demographic shift is already underway. The systems and platforms that serve elderly people have not kept pace. mitraa is one response to that gap. Not a complete solution. A beginning.