Designing the Memories Experience for B2B Success

Memories & InvoCare Partnership Pilot

CLIENT

Memories

ROLE

Senior Product Designer (lead research, design, and strategy)

PARTNER

InvoCare

TEAM

CEO, PM, Devs, Marketing, Sales

LOCATION

Melbourne

DURATION

6 Months (6-Week Pilot)

Overview

Memories is an Australian funeral tech startup offering digital products (online memorials, live streams, video tributes slideshows, and digital guest books) to help families connect and remember loved ones.

Opportunity

Initially focused on B2C, the model struggled to gain traction. In 2021, Memories partnered with InvoCare, Australia’s largest funeral provider, embedding online memorials into their services. By 2024, the goal expanded: integrate the entire product suite into InvoCare’s offerings to unlock a national deal.

Goals

  1. B2C – For grieving families

Providing families with a meaningful, and easy-to-use experience during an sensitive time, integrating the 4 business products .

  1. B2B – For funeral directors

Design seamless, intuitive digital journeys that support funeral directors to deliver the best possible service under time pressure, while providing families with a meaningful, and easy-to-use experience during an sensitive time.

Challenge

How might we seamlessly integrate Memories' 4 core products into the fast-paced workflow of funeral directors—while creating a comforting, intuitive experience for grieving families—within a 6-week national pilot across 12 funeral homes?

Live stream

Broadcast the service to unite loved ones who can’t attend

VIDEO TRIBUTE

Families can easily create a heartfelt video for the service

Guest book

Family can share condolences from anywhere, anytime

Memorial

Preserve all service memories in one accessible place online

Continuous Discovery & Delivery

Design Approach

We built on existing research and data, iterated quickly, and tested in real settings. Small research studies allowed us to continuously improve and deliver while staying sensitive to users’ emotions.

Mixed-Methods

Research Approach

Stakeholder Interviews

Collaborated with InvoCare’s national and regional managers to ensure business alignment with goals and pilot constraints before designing solutions.

Insights:

  • InvoCare needed visibility into Memories product performance.
  • We defined pilot KPIs: sales conversion, product usage, and family sentiment.
  • Stakeholders aimed for an integrated and branded InvoCare experience.
  • InvoCare excluded video tributes from the pilot.

On-Site Observations

To uncover unspoken pain points during real funerals by observing guest behavior and validate how people interacted with live streams and guest book QR codes during services.

Insight:

  • Older guests often didn’t understand how and why to scan the QR guestbook, placement of key elements is critical.
  • Phones were left in cars, so the QR code guestbook was underused, and poor Wi-Fi limited digital access.
  • Informed the creation of printed guestbook bookmarks, service booklet stickers, and offline-friendly flows.

Funeral Directors Interviews

Explored end-to-end experiences with Connect and Memories products to surface pain points and opportunities for improvements.

Insight:

  • Directors found the case search difficult and reported that filling out cases felt overwhelming.
  • Livestream drove most of the perceived value.
  • Funeral directors value the video tribute product but didn’t want the burden of scanning physical photos.

Family Interviews

Interviewed families to assess emotional impact, usability, and the long-term value of Memories products.

Insight:

  • Families found the experience valuable, specially for overseas family.
  • Families were confused having 2 pages, the tribute page and the online memorial.
  • Families were often confused by too many digital links on the emails to activate products.

Affinity mapping themes after interviews with funeral directors and families.

USER

Personas

InvoCare Funeral Director — explain packages to families, and create/manage cases on Memories Connect.

Grieving Family Organiser — manages the memories products and invites others to contribute.

JOURNEY MAP

Funeral Director

Design Solutions

Memories Connect CRM

Improved case search

Added search filters across organisations and improved UI components.

↓ from ~3 mins to ~1 min on average

Improve products visualisation

Added product state visualisation within each case (active, pending, or completed.

↓ by 40% # of clicks to check product status

Reduce case creation time

Redesigned the layout using vertical tabs, breaking the information into logical sections, allowing funeral directors to focus on one chunk of information at a time and easily navigate between sections without excessive scrolling.

From ~12 mins to ~8.5 on average

Reporting products performance

Introduced a reporting tab to help funeral directors track product performance, guest engagement, and overall usage.

65% of pilot users accessed the reporting tab weekly

Designed The Tribute Page

Merge all Products

A central hub for live streaming, sharing service details, and signing the guest book, connecting family and friends before and during the service.

Enhanced remote participation, and perceived value

Memorial QR Code Linking Workflow

Link QR codes to memorials efficiently

A login-free QR code linking feature, enabling funeral directors to scan and assign a stainless steel QR code to a specific memorial.

Under 1 minute setup time

Memorial QR Code Linking Workflow

Simplify memorial claiming process

Designed a seamless QR code claiming experience, allowing families to instantly claim a specific memorial by scanning a QR code. And for contributors to easily access the memorial.

Under 1 minute claiming time

“

“

The Memories experience really did enhance the funeral by giving the families a variety of options to share in the service.

Craig Renshaw - Perth - Australia

PROJECT

Impact

  • Research insights influenced Memories product roadmap, including scaling into additional funeral home networks on the UK and US.
  • Memories secured a multi-year partnership with InvoCare, rolling out across 200+ funeral homes, validating the B2B model and elevating Memories from a ‘nice-to-have’ to a core component of InvoCare’s service offering.
  • The redesigned Memories Connect platform became the central tool for funeral directors to manage their Memories digital services.

KEY

Learnings

  • I grew as a designer by balancing empathy with fast iteration—validating solutions in emotional contexts and aligning diverse teams under pressure.
  • Designing for grief required empathy, human-centred thinking, and sensitivity in tone and timing.
  • Holistic service design allowed us to go beyond UI and embed the experience into real-world funeral workflows.
  • Collaboration and trust with partners like InvoCare were key to success. Future opportunities include deeper co-design with funeral directors to evolve the service.

NEXT CASE STUDY

Memorial Onboarding

Work

About

Playground

Designing the Memories Experiencefor B2B Success

Memories & InvoCarePartnership Pilot

CLIENT

Memories

ROLE

Senior Product Designer (lead research, design, and strategy)

PARTNER

InvoCare (Australia’s largest funeral provider)

TEAM

CEO, PM, 4 Devs Marketing, Sales

LOCATION

Melbourne

DURATION

6 Months (2024)

Overview

Memories is an Australian funeral-tech startup that offers a suite of digital memorial products designed to help families connect and remember. Initially focused on consumers (B2C), the model struggled to reach families effectively during time of need.

Opportunity

Facing limitations with its direct-to-consumer model, Memories identified a crucial opportunity: partnering with InvoCare, Australia's largest funeral provider, to embed Memories digital products into their core services.

Goals

  1. B2C – For grieving families

Deliver a unified and easy-to-use experience during an emotionally sensitive time by integrating all 4 Memories products into a single, meaningful digital experience.

  1. B2B – For funeral directors

Improve the Memories Connect CRM UX/UI to support funeral directors in delivering high-quality services under tight timeframes—reducing friction in their daily workflow.

Challenge

How might we seamlessly integrate Memories' 4 core products into the fast-paced workflow of funeral directors—while creating a comforting, intuitive experience for grieving families—within a 6-week national pilot across 12 funeral homes?

Live stream

Broadcast the service to unite loved ones who can’t attend

VIDEO TRIBUTE

Families can easily create a heartfelt video for the service

Guest book

Family can share condolences from anywhere, anytime

Memorial

Preserve all service memories in one accessible place online

Continuous Discovery & Delivery

Design Approach

We built on existing research and data, iterated quickly, and tested in real settings. Small research studies allowed us to continuously improve and deliver while staying sensitive to users’ emotions.

Mixed-Methods

Research

Stakeholder Interviews (Before Pilot)

Collaborated with InvoCare’s national and regional managers to ensure business alignment with goals and pilot constraints before designing solutions.

Insights:

  • InvoCare needed visibility into Memories product performance.
  • We defined pilot KPIs: sales conversion, product usage, and family sentiment.
  • Stakeholders aimed for an integrated and branded InvoCare experience.
  • InvoCare excluded video tributes from the pilot.

Funeral Directors Check-ins

Held weekly feedback sessions across 12 pilot homes to identify friction points early and inform iterative improvements.

 

Insight:

  • Funeral directors needed better ways to track product activation and access to performance data.
  • Directors who personally valued Memories where selling more packages.

Funeral Directors Interviews (Before and during Pilot)

Explored end-to-end experiences with Connect and Memories products to surface pain points and opportunities for improvements.

Insight:

  • Directors found the case search difficult and reported that filling out cases felt overwhelming.
  • Livestream drove most of the perceived value.
  • Funeral directors value the video tribute product but didn’t want the burden of scanning physical photos.

Family Interviews (After Pilot)

Interviewed families to assess emotional impact, usability, and the long-term value of Memories products.

Insight:

  • Families found the experience valuable, specially for overseas family.
  • Families were confused having 2 pages, the tribute page and the online memorial.
  • Families were often confused by too many digital links on the emails to activate products.

Affinity mapping themes after interviews with funeral directors and families.

USER

Personas

InvoCare Funeral Director — explain packages to families, and create/manage cases on Memories Connect.

Grieving Family Organiser — manages the memories products and invites others to contribute.

JOURNEY MAP

Funeral Director

Design Solutions

Memories Connect CRM

(Funeral Directors)

Improve case search

Added search filters across organisations and improved UI components for better clarity.

↓ from ~3 mins to ~1 min on average

Improve products visualisation

Added product state visualisation within each case (active, pending, or completed.

↓ by 40% # of clicks to check product status

Reduce case creation time

Redesigned form layout using vertical tabs and breaking the information into logical sections, allowing funeral directors to focus on one chunk of information at a time and easily navigate between sections without excessive scrolling.

↓ from ~12 mins to ~8.5 on average

Reporting products performance

Introduced a reporting tab to help funeral directors track product performance, families engagement, and overall product usage.

65% of pilot users accessed the reporting tab weekly

The Tribute Page

(Families)

Merge all Memories Products

Designed a central hub for live streaming, sharing service details, and signing the guest book, connecting family and friends before and during the service. After the funeral, the tribute page transitioned into a tab within the permanent online memorial.

↑ connection, remote participation, and perceived value

Memorial QR Code Linking Workflow

(Funeral Directors)

Link QR codes to memorials efficiently

Designed a login-free QR code linking feature, enabling funeral directors to scan and assign a stainless steel QR code to a specific memorial — eliminating the need to log into Connect and manually do it.

Under 1 minute setup time

Memorial QR Code Linking Workflow

(Funeral Directors)

Link QR codes to memorials efficiently

Designed a seamless QR code claiming experience, allowing families to instantly claim a specific memorial by scanning a QR code. And for contributors to easily access the memorial.

Under 1 minute claiming time

“

“

The Memories experience really did enhance the funeral by giving the families a variety of options to share in the service.

Craig Renshaw - Perth - Australia

PROJECT

Impact

  • Research insights influenced Memories product roadmap, including scaling into additional funeral home networks on the UK and US.
  • Memories secured a multi-year partnership with InvoCare, rolling out across 200+ funeral homes, validating the B2B model and elevating Memories from a ‘nice-to-have’ to a core component of InvoCare’s service offering.
  • The redesigned Memories Connect platform became the central tool for funeral directors to manage their Memories digital services.

KEY

Learnings

  • I grew as a designer by balancing empathy with fast iteration—validating solutions in emotional contexts and aligning diverse teams under pressure.
  • Designing for grief required empathy, human-centred thinking, and sensitivity in tone and timing.
  • Holistic service design allowed us to go beyond UI and embed the experience into real-world funeral workflows.
  • Collaboration and trust InvoCare partners were key to success. Future opportunities include deeper co-design with funeral directors to evolve the service.

NEXT CASE STUDY

Memorial Onboarding

Work

About

Playground

Designing the Memories Experiencefor B2B Success

Memories & InvoCarePartnership Pilot

CLIENT

Memories

ROLE

Senior Product Designer (lead research, design, and strategy)

PARTNER

InvoCare (Australia’s largest funeral provider)

TEAM

CEO, PM, 4 Devs Marketing, Sales

LOCATION

Melbourne

DURATION

6 Months (6-Week Pilot)

Overview

Memories is an Australian funeral tech startup offering digital products (online memorials, live streams, video tributes slideshows, and digital guest books) to help families connect and remember loved ones.

Opportunity

Initially focused on B2C, the model struggled to gain traction. In 2021, Memories partnered with InvoCare, Australia’s largest funeral provider, embedding online memorials into their services. By 2024, the goal expanded: integrate the entire product suite into InvoCare’s offerings to unlock a national deal.

Goals

  1. B2B – For funeral directors

Improve the Memories Connect CRM experience to support funeral directors manage and activate Memories products quickly and confidently within tight funeral service timelines, while delivering high-quality services.

  1. B2C – For grieving families

Deliver a unified and easy-to-use experience during an emotionally sensitive time by integrating all 4 Memories products (online memorial, digital guest book, video tribute, live stream) into a single digital experience.

Challenge

How might we seamlessly integrate Memories core products into the fast-paced workflow of funeral directors—while creating a comforting, intuitive experience for grieving families—within a 6-week national pilot across 12 funeral homes?

Live stream

Broadcast the service to unite loved ones who can’t attend

VIDEO TRIBUTE

Families can easily create a heartfelt video for the service

Guest book

Family can share condolences from anywhere, anytime

Memorial

Preserve all service memories in one accessible place online

Continuous Discovery & Delivery

Design Approach

We built on existing research and data, iterated quickly, and tested in real settings. Small research studies allowed us to continuously improve and deliver while staying sensitive to users’ emotions.

Mixed-Methods

Research

Stakeholder Interviews (Before Pilot)

Collaborated with InvoCare’s national and regional managers to ensure business alignment with goals and pilot constraints before designing solutions.

Insights:

  • InvoCare needed visibility into Memories product performance.
  • We defined pilot KPIs: sales conversion, product usage, and family sentiment.
  • Stakeholders aimed for an integrated and branded InvoCare experience.
  • InvoCare excluded video tributes from the pilot.

On-Site Observations (During Pilot)

To uncover unspoken pain points during real funerals by observing guest behavior and validate how people interacted with live streams and guest book QR codes during services.

Insight:

  • Older guests often didn’t understand how and why to scan the QR guestbook, placement of key elements is critical.
  • Phones were left in cars, so the QR code guestbook was underused, and poor Wi-Fi limited digital access.
  • Informed the creation of printed guestbook bookmarks, service booklet stickers, and offline-friendly flows.

Analytics Memories Products (Before Pilot)

To understand product usage at scale and validate behavioural trends using real data—measuring activation rates, engagement patterns, and product drop-offs.

Insights:

  • Online memorial had a low activation rate, only 22% of families from InvoCare funeral homes used it.
  • Memories Connect CRM search logs showed repeated queries for recently created cases, indicating poor visibility and access to active workflows.
  • Case creation in Memories Connect averaged 12 minutes, revealing opportunities to streamline the process under time pressure.

Funeral Directors Check-ins (During Pilot)

Held weekly feedback sessions across 12 pilot homes to identify friction points early and inform iterative improvements.

 

Insight:

  • Funeral directors needed better ways to track product activation and access to performance data.
  • Directors who personally valued Memories where selling more packages.

Funeral Directors Interviews (Before and during Pilot)

Explored end-to-end experiences with Connect and Memories products to surface pain points and opportunities for improvements.

Insight:

  • Directors found the case search difficult and reported that filling out cases felt overwhelming.
  • Livestream drove most of the perceived value.
  • Funeral directors value the video tribute product but didn’t want the burden of scanning physical photos.

Family Interviews (After Pilot)

Interviewed families to assess emotional impact, usability, and the long-term value of Memories products.

Insight:

  • Families found the experience valuable, specially for overseas family.
  • Families were confused having 2 pages, the tribute page and the online memorial.
  • Families were often confused by too many digital links on the emails to activate products.

Funeral Directors Surveys (During Pilot)

Collected quantitative and qualitative feedback from pilot homes and monitor Memories products package uptake perceived value, sales, and discover usability issues.

Insight:

  • Majority of families opted for the full premium package (Live stream, guest book and online memorial).
  • Informed weekly product tweaks and messaging refinements.

Affinity mapping themes after interviews with funeral directors and families.

USER

Personas

InvoCare Funeral Director — explain packages to families, and create/manage cases on Memories Connect.

Grieving Family Organiser — manages the memories products and invites others to contribute.

JOURNEY MAP

Funeral Director

Design Solutions

Memories Connect CRM

(Funeral Directors)

Improved case search

Added search filters across organisations and improved UI components for better clarity.

↓ from ~3 mins to ~1 min on average

Improve products visualisation

Added product state visualisation within each case (active, pending, or completed.

↓ by 40% # of clicks to check product status

Reduce case creation time

Redesigned form layout using vertical tabs and breaking the information into logical sections, allowing funeral directors to focus on one chunk of information at a time and easily navigate between sections without excessive scrolling.

↓ from ~12 mins to ~8.5 on average

Reporting products performance

Introduced a reporting tab to help funeral directors track product performance, families engagement, and overall product usage.

65% of pilot users accessed the reporting tab weekly

The Tribute Page

(Families)

Merge all Memories Products

Designed a central hub for live streaming, sharing service details, and signing the guest book, connecting family and friends before and during the service. After the funeral, the tribute page transitioned into a tab within the permanent online memorial.

↑ connection, remote participation, and perceived value

Memorial QR Code Linking Workflow

(Funeral Directors)

Link memorials to QR codes efficiently

Designed a login-free QR code feature, enabling funeral directors to scan an link a QR code to a specific memorial — eliminating the need to manually log into Connect.

Under 1 minute setup time

Memorial QR Code Linking Workflow

(Funeral Directors)

Simplify memorial claiming process

Designed a seamless QR code claiming experience, allowing families to instantly claim a specific memorial by scanning a QR code. And for contributors to easily access the memorial.

Under 1 minute claiming time

“

“

The Memories experience really did enhance the funeral by giving the families a variety of options to share in the service.

Craig Renshaw - Perth - Australia

PROJECT

Impact

  • Research insights influenced Memories product roadmap, including scaling into additional funeral home networks on the UK and US.
  • Memories secured a multi-year partnership with InvoCare, rolling out across 200+ funeral homes, validating the B2B model and elevating Memories from a ‘nice-to-have’ to a core component of InvoCare’s service offering.
  • The redesigned Memories Connect platform became the central tool for funeral directors to manage their Memories digital services.

KEY

Learnings

  • I grew as a designer by balancing empathy with fast iteration—validating solutions in emotional contexts and aligning diverse teams under pressure.
  • Designing for grief required empathy, human-centred thinking, and sensitivity in tone and timing.
  • Holistic service design allowed us to go beyond UI and embed the experience into real-world funeral workflows.
  • Collaboration and trust InvoCare partners were key to success. Future opportunities include deeper co-design with funeral directors to evolve the service.

NEXT CASE STUDY

Memorial Onboarding

Work

About

Playground