UX RESEARCH & MID FIDELITY DESIGN PROJECT
Patients First
A native mobile app designed to improve patient experiences during remote consultations
The brief
During my studies at Brainstation, I was tasked to find a key problem in the current healthcare system and build a design solution for it.
This project was part of Patients First - a government-led initiative aimed at improving healthcare for patients.
Taking a human-centred design approach, I wanted to find out what effect the increase in remote GP appointments has on healthcare services.
The solution
A low-fidelity app designed to make patients feel more at ease during remote consultations by allowing them to add preferences and relevant information before and after the consultation.
Role
UX Researcher, UX Designer
Project length
2 weeks
September 2022
Tools
Figma, InVision
Platform
Android
My design process
I followed the Double Diamond Design Thinking process to ensure my design decisions were based on user research.
Discover
The problem space
Remote consultations have increased massively in recent years.
Though a lot of positives have been reported, many patients are anxious about describing symptoms over the telephone. This leads to patients raising fewer health issues during their consultations.
With young women being more likely to use remote services than other demographics, they are arguably facing a bigger risk of not getting as much out of their appointments. This might have a negative effect on the healthcare that these women receive.
A bit more on the data
of appointments are done over the phone
50%
of patients are feeling dissatisfied
72%
how much shorter remote consultations are in comparison with F2F consultations.
4.1 mins
Problem statement
Young women are more likely to use remote healthcare services than other demographics, which put them in a vulnerable position of not getting adequate medical treatment.
My assumptions
Young women are especially likely to be affected by issues related to remote consultations.
#1
Young women are more likely to seek help for ‘sensitive’ issues, which puts them in a vulnerable position for remote consultations.
#2
Young women tend to feel like they can’t express their concerns during a remote appointment.
#3
Hypothesis statement
I put together the following statement to challenge my assumptions:
I believe that patients are less likely to raise issues and concerns during remote appointments than during F2F. The result might be that they don’t receive the right medical treatment.
I will validate my hypothesis when I see the following feedback from the user research: At least a majority of my user interview respondents confirm they’ve either forgotten to mention issues or decided not to raise them during a remote consultation.
Listening to the users
I conducted primary user research in order to ensure that the user’s needs were at the forefront of my design decisions.
I interviewed 3 UK-based women aged 25-34 who have had at least one remote medical consultation during the last year.
What I wanted to understand
Common pain points that patients experience during remote medical consultations.
Explore if patients experience difficulty expressing themselves or remembering to mention things. And if so, how they concur the difficulties.
Identify what patients are looking for to improve the experience during remote consultations.
Research findings
I categorised the findings from the user interviews using the affinity mapping method and split up the insights into behaviours, motivations and pain points.
Behaviour
“I tend to look up the Doctor online before the appointment”
“I get uncomfortable when I have to take an image during the consultation.”
“I struggle to express myself when I’m on the spot”
“I sometimes forget things during a call and realise it straight after”
Motivations
“I want to have a name and face of the Doctor I’m talking to”
“I don’t want to have to take photos during the consultation”
“I prefer to have the video on to build more of a personal connection”
“I want a way to follow up after the appointment”
Pain points
“It’s hard to get in touch before an appointment”
“It’s hard to follow up after an appointment”
“I struggle to feel a personal connection over the phone”
“I struggle to come up with things on the spot”
The common themes
Users mentioned that they tend to look up the Doctors to get a face to the name.
They want to know who they talk to by seeing name and image.
Personal connection
People are more likely to forget to mention things during remote consultations.
They want to be able to follow up on things they’ve forgotten about.
Follow up option
People prefer to be in comfortable situations when talking to a GP.
That often includes having the option of having the video on or not having to send images on the spot.
Customisation options
Define
Meet Lisa, the persona
The secondary and primary research helped me understand who the target user is, and what their goals, values and needs look like.
How Might We question
How might we help young women, like Lisa, share information with their Doctors so that they feel more comfortable and relaxed during their remote consultations?
User stories
The user stories were created based on the goals and wishes of the persona. The user stories were grouped into epics based on the similarities they shared. I decided to focus my product on the core epic of communicating with the Doctor.
Task flow
I created a task flow based on the core epic to communicate with the Doctor.
Task: Share information before a Doctor’s appointment.
User stories addressed in this task flow
As a remote patient, I want to add questions prior to the appointment so that I can feel more at ease during the consultation.
As a remote patient, I want to add photos prior to the app so that I don’t have to worry about it during the appointment.
As a remote patient, I want to add symptoms prior to the app so that I don’t forget to ask them.
Develop
Paper sketches
Once I had the task flows built out, I started to sketch my initial designs on paper, trying a number of layout variations.
Here is the final version of the flow.
Digital wireframes
Once I had settled on my solution sketches, I started developing my digital wireframes in Figma.
User testing
I conducted one round of usability tests with five users. The goal of the tests was to get feedback that could improve the design and the overall user experience.
Iteration 1
Split up upcoming and previous appointments instead of using a tab function to reduce the effort required from the user.
Iteration 2
A couple of users mentioned that they would have wanted the option to contact their GP Practices or make changes to upcoming appointments
I added a ‘contact’ button as well as a ‘change appointment’ option. The change the appointment option is only available for upcoming appointments.
Delivery
Final Lo-Fi prototype
This is the final version of the Lo-Fi prototype.
Wrap up
Take aways
The importance of user research
My assumptions were often different from the insights of the user interviews and testing.
This taught me the importance of really listening and emphasising the users throughout the design process.
Steer away from own preferences
I started to like certain elements of my own design and felt a degree of reluctance to change them.
However, by steering away from my own preferences and by truly listening to the users, I ended up making iterations that improved the product massively.
The power or staying organised
The users shared plenty of good insights during the interviews and usability testing.
Using the affinity mapping method helped me spot the common threads.