Care Level Calculator for Germany

Background: The Complexity of Care Levels

While working on a recent freelance project, I stumbled upon a very specific but socially relevant topic. Germany’s long-term care system is comprehensive, but navigating its bureaucracy (or should I say bureaucrazy?) is anything but simple.

One example is determining a person’s care level (Pflegegrad), which involves a multi-dimensional assessment across six life areas, a weighted scoring system, and nuanced distinctions that confuse even professionals. For affected individuals and their families, this complexity often arrives at a time of exhaustion, helplessness, and frustration.

Existing online tools suffer from poor usability, limited accessibility, and sometimes even require users to hand over contact information before showing the result. Simply put: they’re not designed with the user in mind. I decided to tackle this problem head-on.

Challenge: Comprehensive but Clear

My goal was to build a tool that does four things well:

• mirror the official assessment guidelines and their extensive informational content without overwhelming users,

• show the underlying calculation and classification logic without creating confusion,

• list (only) relevant benefit entitlements based on the calculated care level,

• provide actionable next steps.

That’s harder than it sounds. The target group is broad — elderly individuals, family caregivers, social workers, and healthcare professionals — spanning a wide range of digital literacy, age, language backgrounds, and device types. Designing for this group means no shortcuts when it comes to accessibility, clarity, or responsiveness.

Solution: Simple & Sophisticated

The calculator guides users through the official assessment modules in a structured, step-by-step flow. Each item includes definitions from the official assessment guidelines, helping users understand exactly what they’re answering.

A permanently visible score displays the current “live” result and updates with every interaction. The tool then clearly presents the final result together with all answered questions, relevant benefit entitlements, and recommended next steps.

What further sets it apart:

• Seven languages (German, simplified German, English, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, and Polish) address the linguistic reality of who actually gives and receives care in Germany.

• Accessibility according to the WCAG AA standard and responsive design make it enable use by almost all users on all devices.

• Instantaneous — no backend, no loading states, no accounts; results are immediate and private.

View the calculator at www.pflegegrad-rechner.eu

How It Was Built

I used this project as an opportunity to learn more about AI-assisted product development. My workflow drew on a structured methodology from the AI Masterclass by Jens Rusitschka, using AI not just for vibe coding, but as a design and development partner throughout the process – from research to deployment.

The calculator was built with Claude Code along with the /impeccable skill that helped push the visual design quality beyond generic AI-generated UI aka “AI slop”. The tech stack consists of React, TypeScript, Vite, and Tailwind. The application is deployed on Cloudflare Pages as fully static, pre-rendered HTML.

Reflection

I learned a lot from this project. For example, that AI can be used systematically at every stage of the design process, and that Claude Code is a much better developer than I’ll ever be. But I also found that AI cannot (yet) create products like this entirely on its own; rather, it still requires human intelligence, intuition, judgment, and (especially with a topic like this) empathy for users.

I sincerely hope that the Pflegegrad Rechner will help those affected and reduce their exhaustion, at least a bit.