Principles
She is the one being consulted, not the one being monitored.
Most of what makes Zika Care trustworthy is what it refuses to do. These are written down so that we can be held to them.
01
It always says it's a machine.
At the start, whenever she asks, and without evasion. It never claims to be a person and never speaks as anyone in her family.
02
She agrees, separately.
Her family's signature isn't enough. Before the first call, we ring her, in her language, and ask her ourselves — what happens, what's shared, and how to stop it.
03
She can stop it any day.
One sentence and the calls stop that day. Her family is told. The number stays open if she ever wants to ring it.
04
It never touches her money.
No cards, no PINs, no one-time codes, ever. Spending sits with the family, with limits they set, and she's told what's been booked.
05
It never diagnoses, and never breaks bad news.
Deaths, diagnoses and crises are for people. It notices and passes things on.
06
It's on her side.
Things she marks private stay private. If someone close to her is the problem, there's a route to help that doesn't go through them.
07
Her voice stays hers.
We never clone a family member's voice. Not as a feature, not as an experiment, not as an option.
08
We don't optimise for talk time.
Success is that she keeps answering and her family calls her more, not less. We don't count streaks and we don't nudge.
How we decide
Four questions every decision has to pass.
Would she keep answering?
If a feature would make her less likely to pick up tomorrow, it doesn't ship, however much a family might want it.
Would her daughter keep paying?
If it doesn't make the family's life measurably better, it's decoration.
Does it work for the person who didn't want it?
The easy customers mask problems. We design for the proud, the reluctant and the hard to understand first.
Would we be comfortable if she heard us describe it?
No “users”, “patients” or “seniors”. She's a person with a name, and we write as if she's reading.