Able Care
Designing a new digital future for grip rehabilitation with a patient-first app and clinician-facing portal.
Able Care is on a mission to transform grip and upper limb rehabilitation with their innovative hardware product, GripAble is a device that measures grip strength and movement. As the company evolved, they needed to reposition the product from a hardware-led solution to a scalable digital service.
We partnered with Able Care and their in-house app team to help define a new product direction and user experience.
OUR APPROACH
From grip strength to full-body assessment
Originally focused on grip strength alone, the new digital product marks a significant expansion of GripAble’s capabilities. In addition to upper limb functionality, the updated app now supports a wider range of tests targeting lower limb strength, mobility, and fall risk offering clinicians a more complete view of patient health.The platform supports a growing library of physical assessments, including:
- Single Maximum Grip Test (SMGT)
- 4-Metre Gait Speed Test (4MGS)
- Timed Up & Go (TUG)Chair Stand Test (CST)
- Falls Risk Scoring, generated from combined test data
These assessments are presented clearly within the app for patients and are tracked and visualised in the portal for clinicians. The system was designed with future growth in mind, new tests or measurement types can be added as the clinical toolkit evolves.
OUR APPROACH
Rethinking the user journey
The first phase of the project focused on product strategy and user research. We ran a series of workshops with Able Care’s stakeholders and clinical experts to define key user personas and map out their journeys across both app and portal.
This foundational work helped the team pivot to a new business model shifting from a hardware product to a hybrid digital service offering, designed to better serve both patients and healthcare providers.
TECHNOLOGY
Friendly, accessible, and functional
Accessibility was central to every design decision. The user app needed to be clean, calming, and intuitive — supporting people with a wide range of motor abilities and cognitive needs.
We focused on large touch targets, simple flows, and high-contrast visuals that meet WCAG AAA standards.
To bring warmth and clarity to the experience, we designed a suite of friendly, character-led illustrations and animated them using Lottie. These animations help guide users through exercises, tests, and onboarding, reducing cognitive load and creating a more human experience.
IntegratIONS
From prototype to portal frontend
We designed the user app and prototyped it in Figma, collaborating closely with Able Care’s internal developers to ensure feasibility and clarity across handoff. For the clinician-facing portal, Subism designed and built the frontend interface, working in close partnership with Able Care’s backend and DevOps teams. Our team integrated with their existing APIs to ensure seamless data flows, test results, and user management all within a highly responsive, user-friendly environment. Our dev team used a modern, scalable tech stack:
- React for dynamic, responsive interfaces
- Next.js for fast UI development and routing
- Tailwind CSS for clean, maintainable design
- ES6 JavaScript for readable, efficient code
- Google Cloud Platform for secure deployment
- WCAG AAA compliance across all components
THE RESULTS
A new digital ecosystem
The result is a flexible, future-ready ecosystem that aligns clinical precision with user-first design.
The patient app supports daily engagement and rehabilitation, while the clinician portal enables effective remote care and detailed progress tracking.
By expanding its capabilities beyond grip strength, Able Care is now positioned as a key player in holistic mobility assessment and falls prevention.
From early-stage strategy to frontend development, we helped them redefine what their platform could be and built the foundation for where it’s going next.
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