Challenge
Bay Alarm Medical wants to make a more significant life-saving impact by adding new features to extend and enhance its existing app. Therefore, our team Justin Pejman, Kei Chan, Nikita Michayluk, and myself were asked to deliver high-fidelity mockups with an interactive prototype within two weeks for the approval of the final design stage after usability testing. This means we need to Empathize, Define and Ideate the design within a week before we move on to the Prototype and Test stage in week 2.
R O L E
UXDI Designer
T I M E
2 weeks
R E S P O N S I B I L I T I E S
User research, Sketching, Journey mapping and Usability testing
T O O L S
Miro, Figma, My-Type-form and Trello
Empathy
Why are there two separate apps?
This was the frustration encountered by caregivers using the app and it's lack of monitoring the vitals of their care receiver.
Problem
User Interviews
I conducted Surveys with users who are familiar with care giving to identify their needs and pain points. I surveyed between the ages of 40 and 70. In addition, their professions varied from hospitality worker to homemaker, which reflected in their care giving style.
Key Takeaways
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They try successfully to check on their care receiver’s vitals and healthy habits every day.
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They sometimes need the help of a secondary caregiver.
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They use post it notes, calendars, pill boxes, and timed phone calls set up to track their care receiver’s activity
Interview 1
“I do not want my care receiver to feel isolated.”
Interview 2
“Sometimes it’s nice to have someone check on them when we are away.”
Interview 3
“I often call regularly to check on them.”
Next Challenge
We plan to match Bay Alarm Medical’s high-response time with the new features without losing its customers to its competitors.
Competitive & Comparative Analysis
While understanding the users' thoughts and feelings toward the app, I researched some direct and indirect competitors. During the research, I understood each website's significant strengths and weaknesses. Doing so made it easier to figure out the most commonly sought-after features for a successful remodeled product.
Define
Affinity mapping
Based on the insight provided by the participants during the user interviews, I created two personas that reflect various needs and pain points. To delve further into the persona's behaviors, attitudes, and thoughts, we created an affinity map which helped me bring the personas to life and examine the problems more carefully from the user's perspective.
User Personas
Proposed Challenges
Before creating the two personas that reflect various needs and pain points, I proposed two critical challenges or scenarios for our persona that were unsuccessful in making the final cut.
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How do I know my medical alert is working?
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What is the care giver's experience when given limited access to the care receiver's health and personal files during an emergency due to privacy settings?
Next Challenge
In order to see how users like to organize content and determine the information architecture of the website, we used MSCW method with the different participants.
Information Architecture
By incorporating the findings from MSCW and user research, we were able to group the different items into specific categories and plan the app's layout accordingly.
Task Flows
We merged two apps based on the user's status, i.e., Acct. manager, care giver or both. We then developed task flows to show the ideal flow the user would take to complete a task on the newly combined caregiver app. In this case, the first flow focused on checking the vitals and medication without leaving the homepage. The second flow concentrates on building easy steps for users to find and connect with emergency contacts.
Creating these flows allowed me to think from the user’s perspective and consider the different options that the user has while using the emergency app.
Flow 1: Darren’s Task flow involves him checking on his mom's vitals, browsing through her medication updates and sending back reminders. When he receives an emergency alert.
Flow 2: Judith's Task flow involves her receiving an emergency alert.
Ideate
Sketching
This stage of the Design Thinking process focuses on taking a creative approach and generating ideas. Once the App-Map was ready, we made some sketches of Bay Alarm Medical App to get an idea of what it would look like to meet the project requirements and User preferabilities using design studio Method. I Proposed The Domino’s Pizza food preparation and delivery Timeline
Digital Wireframes
With my sketches by my side, my team, Justin and Nikita developed several high-fidelity wireframes on Figma.
Journey Map
We used journey map to layout the touch points of using the app to draw out opportunities.
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Darren's crisis was he was at the tipping point because of his mom's failing health. He would monitor her constantly and be on 911 calls frequently. This opened the opportunity to introduce Darren to the app by making it user friendly, adding new features. He can now check the vitals without leaving the homepage. With an emergency touch point he can connect for important real time information. He finds rhythm in his daily care giving duties and the support made him identify as the primary care giver.
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Judith's tipping point was how will she be reached out during an emergency. So we made the device connect Judith with other care givers by building a network of support.
Prototype
The next step in the process is making a clickable prototype so the users can test it out. This step allowed us to gather feedback regarding the product and figure out the best outcome.
Testing
Usability Testing
This final step focuses on testing out the prototype. It is also an iterative process that allows me to evaluate whether my design solves the problem and redesigns any parts of the product if needed.
I conducted remote usability testing using a High-fidelity mockups. It was conducted to test the flow of design, ease of navigation, and the extent to which the design accurately reflects the brand's values. The test was also used to see whether the design solves the user's needs and pain points that were captured during the research phase.
The test was conducted with a total of Four participants between the ages of 30 and 50. Each of the participants were asked to
complete the following tasks:
Check Vitals, Send a Medication Reminder, Contact an Emergency operator, and Connect to Secondary Caregiver.
K E Y QU O T E S
“It was very confusing.”
“ Where is the medication reminder?”
“What does it what me to do?”
“Where do I go to call another caregiver?”
Key Findings
Next Steps
Priority Revisions
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We want to change some of our designs with the feedback provided during usability testing. We can conduct another usability test to see whether the revisions have solved the issues that the users previously brought up. Then, if needed, we would have to do another round of iteration and testing. Once these steps are complete, we can hand the project to the developers.
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Final Product - After going through all the steps of Design Thinking, I want to see a an app for Bay alarm medical that can be used to speak the same language as the caregiver. In addition, its international market must be given a thought because we anticipate market growth outside its current territory.
Proposed Solutions
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Gamification
Introducing a reward every time a caregiver does simple to complicated tasks on the app? Like, send a heart emoji to the caregiver when they send a Medication reminder. An appreciating word like "you are compassionate" when they take time to check on the Care-receiver’s vitals.
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Assistive Technology
It takes five times longer for a disabled person to interact with an app. We can make it more AA compliance by making it an Assistive tech-based app.
Learning & Conclusion
By incorporating the Design thinking approach, I understood how each step develops the final product.
Empathy - enabled me to address the problem in a human-centered manner.
Define - helped me understand the importance of empathy mapping.
Ideate - Most importantly, I learned that design is an iterative process that requires much time and effort. However, i came up with quick solutions in design studio method.
Testing - made me think about time management because there are ways in which I can improve user experience drastically over time . It took quite some time to get the hang of the entire process, as it was my first time working in an UX team project. However, it was a learning curve that truly taught m several essential skills that a UX designer needs. As a result, I'm confident in tackling new projects in a group if I continue working on my skills and speed.