Role
UX Designer/Lead Designer.
Design Thinking, Design System, User Research, Personas, Prototyping, Marketing Website.
Skills
Figma, CamScanner.
Tools Used
Summary
Waiting at the doctor's office. We have all experienced this, and we all dread it. However, what is it exactly that hinders doctors? Is it the number of patients they see on a daily basis? Is it due to the lack of modern technology and digital solutions?
Problem space
Family physicians often struggle to efficiently organize and access their past notes, resulting in delays in providing a resolution for patients. Primary qualitative research revealed that doctors lose a substantial amount of time due to paper work during their week, directly impacting the amount of time spent with patients.
How Might We Question
How might we enhance the efficiency of family doctors in retrieving and utilizing accurate information from past medical notes to facilitate more precise diagnosis?
Research
Research Methods
To further reinforce the notion that doctors struggle to transition between patient appointments, decontextualized interviews were used in conjunction with primary qualitative research and secondary quantitative research insights.
Secondary Research
Secondary research has revealed that doctors face challenges not only with paperwork but also with other aspects of their practice, such as only being able to accurately diagnose a limited number of cases and patients.
1 Misdiagnosis
Will be experienced by everyone in their lifetime.
29%
Of medical malpractice cases are linked to diagnostic issues.
Only 64%
Of cases presented to family physicians are solved.
Following the completion of primary and secondary research, more insight was needed in order to reach a solution. As a result, decontextualized interviews were conducted (explain why you used interviews) with real doctors, allowing me to summarize their key insights into an affinity map.
The affinty map was compiled with all the insights from the interviews conducted with three doctors.
Summarized Insights
Based on the interviews conducted, the following insights were identified:
Doctors could have a more streamlined process if their workflow had a better structure.
Doctors having to constantly look back and reflect on past notes for accuracy hinders the current medical system by taking away time from patients.
Notes have to be recorded and presented everyday to doctors and patients alike.
After summarizing all interview insights into an affinity map a persona was created. The persona was the distilled insights of all three doctors that were interviewed, this helped find our target area of where doctors needed the most help.
Synthesis
Persona Development
Through the interview process, all insights were summarized into one persona that encompassed all interviewees as well as the target audience.
The persona was a mix of all the three doctors and gave a deeper look into a doctors day to day responsibilities.
Experience Map
An experience map detailing the journey the user would take on a day-to-day basis was developed based on the aforementioned persona.
The experience map helped to pin point which part of a doctors day was most difficult.
After the persona and experience map, the task flow was created to understand how the users would interact with the application on a daily basis.
Ideation
Task Flow
The most important aspect at this point was determining the task flow for the persona. A total of 30 user stories were created, which were then distilled into epics.
The user story best reflected the needs of the persona. “As a medical practitioner, I would like to organize my notes so that they can easily be sorted into the SOAP format to prevent misinformation.” (Doctors write notes in the following format: Subjective, Objective, Assessment, and Plan.) Note Management was selected as the epic.
The task was to select a patient and write a note about them.
User Flow
The user flow went through multiple iterations and was revised three times to make it easier to follow. This was the result of extensive feedback regarding the task flow and wireframes. These revisions improved the flow and addressed the persona's pain points identified during user interviews.
The user flow details how a user would typically interact with the application, and gives an idea of what screens and features need to be included.
Upon completing the user flow the wireframes were able to take shape. The user flow gave great insight into what needed to be included for a user to successfully use the application.
Iterations
Wireframes
Following the creation of the task flow, wireframes were developed. As a result, the final solution was created and would appear in a mobile application format.
Notification where user starts interaction with the application.
User would begin writing their note.
Synthesized information is compiled where the user chooses what information to add to the patient profile.
The patient summary where the user can review past information and the note they are submitting.
Second wireframes and iterations
Wireframes were created initially, and two rounds of user testing were conducted. This led to many changes being made to the second variation, including increasing the number of screens in order to allow the doctor to see all of the information presented more clearly.
User would be able to dictate or type the note as needed.
Synthesized note broken into four sections to be reviewed by user.
Patient review screen to ensure note is being added to the correct patient file.
Additional check to ensure user is submitting correct note to the correct patient.
After the wireframes were refined colour and style could then be added. It was extremely important to keep the style clean and easy to use, while also being thoughtful about the colour and typography selection.
Final Solution
Moodboard
Having refined the prototype further a moodboard was created. This helped to decide on the colours that best suited the application, along with creating a sense calm and cleanliness.
The moodboard used a variety of different mediums to achieve the desired look and feel.
Style Guide
Given that this application is intended for the medical industry, a few factors had to be considered.
During the design process, familiar and calming colours were used. To accomplish this, a variety of blues and neutral colours, including black and grey, were used. Blue's association with calm, peace, and order would help doctors establish a sense of calm during their extremely hectic workdays.
The majority of colours consist of blue, the blue was chosen as the primary colour to envoke calm during a busy shift or rotation.
Typography
As part of the development of this application, typeface played a significant role. After testing a variety of typefaces and font styles, it was decided to use SF Pro in various weights and pixel sizes to highlight buttons and actions. Additionally, SF Pro was chosen due to its iOS compatibility. In contrast, when the application is ported to Android, for example, the font would appear as Roboto in accordance with the operating system.
Hi- Fi Iteration
This is the final version of the prototype, and how the final application should look. It follows the flow of the second set of grayscale wireframes more closely, as the first iteration lacked sufficient detail.
Doctor selects the date to view.
Patient profile shows last visit.
Note is split into four sections to review.
Marketing website for application
Upon completion of the application prototype, we were tasked with developing a marketing website. Below, you will find both the desktop and mobile versions. Keeping in mind how a doctor would feel when viewing these sites, a clean, factual appearance without being too playful was chosen.
Key Learnings and Next Steps
Design Impact
During ideation and creation, it is crucial that we as designers understand every aspect of our ideas and how they can benefit or negatively impact the individuals we are attempting to reach.
The Tarot Cards of Tech were used to shed light on other possible vulnerabilities within the application. The purpose of these prompts is to generate ideas of how to view an idea from a different perspective.
The card chosen was "The Big Bad Wolf." It helped consider the possible consequences of the application falling into the hands of someone or an organization with ill intentions.
“What would predatory and exploitative behaviour look like with your product?”
It is possible for some physicians to violate certain ethical codes by accessing information outside of the office, for example. A patient may feel vulnerable if a doctor is viewing their sensitive information while they are at home.
“What product features are most vulnerable to manipulation?”
The patient profile portion and the ability to take notes could absolutely be a vulnerability. Particularly since doctors have access to patient information on a daily basis.
“Who could be targeted with your product?”
A doctor could have their phone hacked and patient or practice information could be leaked. This would ultimately put all parties involved at risk.
Next Steps
The implementation of more security features in the near future to further give peace of mind for both patients and doctors.
The first security feature that would be implemented is geofencing. This would prevent doctors from accessing information at home and only allow them to access the application within their practice or hospital.
A second feature of the application would be doctors having to enter their license number when signing up for the service so that only medical professionals can access it.
Lastly, the doctor could use face ID to verify their identity before dictating a note to the patient. The purpose of this is to ensure that no one is misusing or abusing the core functions of the application.
Key learnings
When facing a large project, it is essential to break down the task at hand and stay focused on completing the key tasks critical to the success of the product. There is a great need for this when a large project is involved with multiple steps. Another important lesson learnt was remaining focused and managing your time effectively.
Thank you for reading!
You have made it to the end! I would like to take a moment to personally thank you for taking the time to read my case study.
Thank you again so much for reading, and please send me an email or connect with me on LinkedIn if you have additional questions or would like to chat!
Or
Another case study
If you would like to read another case study regarding a mobile app please check out my Shopify x Brainstation case study where I work with a team to develop an application for Shopify that allows customers to edit orders before they are shipped out.