Case Study: Building a Grief Support Platform for the Digital Age

The Project That Changed How I Design

This project started with a simple but deeply personal question:

“How do people in Sri Lanka cope with the death of a loved one in the digital age?”

The answer became the foundation of my Major Design Project—a grief support platform that uses local mourning rituals, user-centered research, and human-first UX to support users emotionally through digital tools.

This is more than just a UI case study. It’s about designing with emotion, culture, and memory in mind.

The Problem: Grief Is Present, But Invisible in Design

During my UX research, I found that people in Sri Lanka often felt emotionally ambushed by digital platforms after losing someone. Here are a few stories I heard:

• “I saw my father’s TikTok and broke down. I didn’t expect it.”

• “Facebook wished my brother happy birthday. He passed two years ago.”

• “There’s no way to do our cultural rituals online. It feels like something’s missing.

Despite the emotional intensity of grief, no mainstream product had space for it—especially not in a culturally meaningful way.

Research: Mapping Emotional and Cultural Patterns

I combined:

• Qualitative interviews with grieving Sri Lankan users (esp. after parental loss)

• Social media observations across Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram

• Cultural analysis of local grief practices (white flags, daane, 7th day bana)

From this, I extracted UX-affect patterns—points where digital design intersected (or failed to intersect) with real emotional needs.

Key Pain Points Identified:

• No cultural rituals reflected online

• No control over resurfaced memories

• No emotional buffer in UI interactions

• Absence of grief-safe spaces or tools

Design Goals

From the research, I framed these design goals:

Platform Features

Here are some of the core features I designed:

Emotion-Sensitive Remembrance Spaces

• Users can create memorial pages with text, images, video, and poems

• UI adapts to emotional tone: calm transitions, muted colors

• Visitors can leave wishes, light virtual oil lamps, or write memories

White Flag Mode

• Activates upon death event

• Visually shifts the platform into mourning state (soft black/white theme)

• Optionally integrates traditional white-flag iconography

Dana Wall

• Inspired by Sri Lankan almsgiving (daane)

• Lets users offer virtual merits—quotes, donations, or kind acts in memory

• Creates a participatory ritual around giving, even in digital form

Grief Journey Tracker

• Maps user’s emotional timeline over 1 week → 3 months → 1 year

• Prompts reflective actions (write a letter, light a candle, read a poem)

• Provides gentle check-ins, not pushy nudges

Grief-Aware UI

• No autoplay

• Soft animation curves

• Reduced brightness modes

• Emotional buffer before displaying sensitive content (e.g., “Are you ready to view this memory?”)

  
  

Outcomes and Reflections

This wasn’t just an academic project it changed how I view design.

Design isn’t always about delight. Sometimes, it’s about dignity.

I saw how small features like choosing when to view a memory gave users power over their pain.

I also saw how localizing grief rituals made users feel seen and supported.

The project isn’t perfect, but it’s a step toward something bigger:

Death-aware, emotionally intelligent UX built from local insight, not global templates.

What’s Next?

After building the platform concept, I’m now focused on:

• Extending it with emotionally-aware microinteractions

• Prototyping mobile-first MVP versions

• Exploring partnerships with NGOs or religious orgs for real-world integration

• Contributing to global UX conversations around death, legacy, and digital dignity

Silent Notifications & Soft UI: Microinteractions that Respect Grieving Users

In the next article, we’ll shift focus to the micro level of grief design looking at how transitions, animations, sounds, and microinteractions can help (or harm) grieving users. You’ll see why even the smallest detail like the way a notification appears can carry emotional weight.