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CareConnect
A hypothetical mobile and web based ditital healthcare platform. The project brief was provided by Crux, a product development consultency.
Duration
Six Weeks
Role
Client Communication, UX Research, Ideation, User Testing
Tools
Figma, Miro
Project Type
Industry Project with Crux
Team
Krishna, Yuehan Xu, Huixian Gong, Yuxuan Xiao, Shaardhool MS
Project Brief: The brief provided by Crux was, “How might we... ensure an empathetic, humanized and effective consultation experience is delivered through digital health platforms?”
Project Overview: We developed a digital solution for international students new to to the UK that enhances their communication with the GP and the support they receive from NHS.
Project Outcome: The final prototype was tested with international PG students and their feedback was utilised to generate future scope of the concept.
Working with the Client
I was in charge of maintaining the communication with the client outside of the weekly catch-ups. This taught me to:
- Make sure that each team member's concerns were reaching the client
- All the members were aware of and in agreement with the client's feedback
- Improve my communication skills as a professional.
Working with the Team
We conducted regular activities during each meet-up as a group.
- Discussed our past experiences with design and beyond to understand personalities.
- Weekly reflection activities to monitor progress and ensure that we were on the same page.
- Exchanging team roles to ensure everyone was developing and unlocking new skills.
- Anonymous team critique to track Group Participation, Time management and, responsibility, Adaptability, Creativity, and Team skills.
- We made sure all critiques were communicated using constructive language.
Empathise: Desktop Research
What problem are we solving?
Round 1:
According to a research done on use of digital healthcare resources during COVID-19
42 %
of respondents said they have, or someone in their house has previously used telehealth services.
82 %
of respondents reported that they were satisfied with the services.
64 %
of respondents said they would’ve preferred seeing their doctor in person.
First round of desktop research presents the following opportunities
Immediate diagnosis
Increase trust in technology
Monitoring patients condition constantly
Educating people about digital healthcare
Round 2:
Digital Healthcare has a vast target audiance.
Second round of research gave us more clarity on the major problems occurring in the area and the users related to that.
Recurring themes
Lack of trust
Struggles to understand information
Quick process
Comfort
Unpacking assumptions
Working Online
Building a connection between doctors and patients is hard online because of the short duration they spend. They might also face connection issues.
Environment
A virtual online meeting could mean people focus less as there are many distractions in their environment.
Health Literacy
Low health literacy among users makes it harder for patients to understand medical terminologies.
Empathise: Pilot interviews
What did we find from pilot interviews?
The goal was to understand the experience of people who have used the NHS consultation system.
Sample: 2 participants (UK Residents)
Eligibility: Have accessed the GP through NHS
Making changes to the approach.
To make a stronger case for these indicators we made the following changes to interview strategy
Reached out to a diverse audience
Modified the questions to avoid repetitive or unnecessary information
Asked users where in the consultation process did they most needed a solution
Empathise: Interviews
Who is the target audiance?
We interviewed 6 international students who had gotten a GP consultaion with NHS.
Emma
London, Age 24
“I find it difficult to understand the accent and its scary to ask doctors to repeat themselves”
Background:
• PGT Masters Student
• Non-native english speaker
Needs
• A relaxed conversation experience.
• Someone who can understand her condition thoroughly.
Pain-points
• Conversing in English.
• Unfamiliar with the NHS.
• Feels anxious about the process
What does the target user need?
Patients need help understanding their condition better as they dont feel satisfied with the amount of information doctors explain.
The doctor needs to understand the patients history and medical literacy level to better empathise with each individual.
Patients need assurance that doctors care about then consultation.
Conceptualise: Exploring Opportunities
What are the possible ways to address user needs?
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Conceptualise: Market Study
What is available in the current market?
At this point we went back and did another round of market study based on the pain points defined for our target audience.
Pre-consultation
During
Post-consultation
Type of service
- Online Questionnaires
- Online Communities
- Appointment Booking
- Transcribed summaries
- Find definitions
- Confirm changes to medications
- Record data
- At-home tests
- Text-photo response
- Prescription service
Example
What is missing in the current market?
EMPATHY
Something that prepares doctors for the interaction with the patient and vice versa.
COMMUNICATION
Something that provides flexibility to the patient’s communicate with the doctor. Any prep for consultation.
COMFORT
Something that can make the consultation call comfortable for the patients.
TRUST
Something that can assure patients that doctors care and make them feel at ease.
Conceptualise: Brainstorming ideas
How did we address user needs?
All the members sketched out their own ideas and presented it to the team. We used voting based on relevance and useful of features for our vision.
Finalising the better idea
Empathy
Communication
Comfort
Trust
VR for self diagnosis
Get to know the doctor
Pre-consultation activities
CareConnect
Conceptualise: User Journey Mapping
How does the solution work?
Conceptualise: User Testing Round 1
What features did we test?
We developed the following features for initial testing.
Health Questionnaire
Wanted to understand if the preferences form sounded professional and collected information that was useful.
Forum
Wanted to understand if the forum page is useful for the user and know how to improve it.
Face Detection
Understand what emotions the patient feels and what causes it. Assess if Face Detection is a viable solution.
User Testing Round 1
Face Detection
Method: Bodystorming
We set up an in-person consultation with one of the participants where:
- one team member acted as a doctor and followed a consultation script as advised by a NHS video
- the participant recorded their emotions at every stage of the QnA with the doctor using post-its.
Insights from the bodystorming activity
Before
- Users experience a range of emotions during a consultation.
- This proved that using face detection would be useful.
- We could came up with potential prompt that might show up on the doctor’s screen based on the expressions shown by the user.
After
Forum and Health Questionnaire
Method: Experience protytyping
Before
We used Microsoft Teams to set up video consultation calls with participants and provided participants with prompts to use during the call.
My usual issue is when that I don’t understand some terminology used by doctors.
Maybe the doctor doesn’t understand when I explain my symptoms
I don’t understand why I’m being asked all these questions about health and language.
Maybe if I could get some advice or help with what I have to note down
After
Pre-consultation questionnaire
- Customisable options to ensure users comfort with features
- More explanation so the user understands the need for every information to build trust
Forum
- Detailed reviews with tags so users know specialities of doctors and real experiences of what they have treated before
In-call suggestions
- Detailed tracking of medical terms guide users with what to ask and keep track of what they don’t understand and want to revisit.
- Helps with effective communication from the user and relieves their anxiety of talking to the doctor.
Visualise: User Story
When does CareConnect come in play?
What are the core features of CareConnect?
Visualise: User Testing Round 2
What do users think of the final design?
Method: Think aloud
We let participants go through the figma high fidelity prototypes. We recorded their opinions by think aloud method.
I feel like my concerns have been answered
The experience was quite engaging
Very nice and new!
Users think the pre-consultation understanding is good but needs to be clearer.
They liked the tips suggested during the consultation.
Visualise: Value Proposition
Value for the customer
Value for Business and Society
Visualise: Risk Analysis
What are the risks related to the design and technology?
How can we overcome these risks?
1
Monitor AI activity and intervene where necessary.
2
Conduct more user tests to generate and improve functions.
3
Collect user feedback where possible.
What can we do to improve the solution?
Prototype & test with real doctors
Plan integration within the NHS system
Attract more users beyond target audience
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