Problem Statement
Patients getting surgery don’t follow instructions during preoperative or postoperative, which causes significant strain on the healthcare system and on the patients themselves.
Hypothesis
Intermediary communication between patient and medical staff will help patients experience a shorter recovery, and quality education post-surgery will reduce re-admissions.
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Research Goals
Discover what drives/ motivates the targeted users
Determine who the primary users are
Identify direct and indirect competitors, and find what functions are desired in the interface
Determine MVP requirements (Features for majority demographics)
Recognize pain points in current healthcare applications to discover opportunities
Limitations/requirements based on competition, user needs
Research Methods
& Artifacts
Secondary research
Prototype testing
Patient interviews
Patient journey
User persona
Information architecture
Heuristic Evaluation
As a new app concept without an established customer base, I created a survey to find adults that had surgery (or someone under their care had) in the past five years for interviews. 20 participants answered the survey and 5 agreed to be interviewed.
Patient Interview Insights
USER 1
My Doctor changed at the last minute, just before the surgery and I was uncomfortable backing out of it.
USER 2
I became further skeptical [of a single medical opinion]
because the removal of the cyst might not have been required.
USER 3
I had no clue what to do after surgery since I was medicated. I read the discharge papers later at home.
Patient education is lacking during home recovery, 7 out of 15 (66.7%) people did not know what to do during Recovery
Patients need excellent post-injury management to recover (24% of interviewees said this helped them recover)
There are two types of patients: 1) patients that never had major surgery and have good health, and 2) patients with pre-existing conditions who had more than one surgery
There are 2 patient types: 1) patients that have a caregiver (29%), and 2) self-care patients (14%)
UX Research Artifacts
Personas, affinity mapping, information architecture, heuristic evaluation, and patient journey.
Competitive Findings
I chose four leaders in the surgery recovery space for my heuristic evaluation because Surgery Buddy will remediate the communication problem between patient and medical staff.
All the competitor apps are offered by third party healthcare providers at no cost to users and require an access code to use. The user restriction is a great model to follow since healthcare apps have to follow HIPAA Privacy rules.
MVP Features
Following the patient interviews, I created minimum viable product (MVP) features in order to validate the idea for the solution. The MVP features focus on the experience for patients, and subsequent releases will add features for caregivers.
The MVP features improve communication between medical staff and patients, and help patients manage their expectations to the real surgery process.
Design Ideation
The research and analysis excises formed the foundation for ideation—sketches to wireframes.
Guerilla Usability Testing 1
I conducated usability tests with 5 participants both in-person and virtual in order to get initial feedback on the low-fidelity designs and learn what aspects were less intuitive.
Guerilla Usability Testing 2
Using user feed back from the first guerrilla testing I re-designed the screen with higher details. I conducted another user testing with 5 participants, a mixture of male and female from 10 to 40 years.
Findings & Analysis
All of the 5 participants had trouble finding surgery metrics
When asked to record their medicine intake, there was no clear consensus where to find the feature
3 out of 5 participants were confused by the terms: Physician, Read, and Tasks
User flows & Wireframes
Before moving to high fidelity designs, I revisited the information architecture and created User Flows for different features in order to validate MVP features and inform the wireframes.
Wireframe Red Route
I created wireframes to organize the content and prioritize the features. I decided which were the red routes for the MVP features based on the two main design issues: improving communication between medical staff and patients and helping patients match their expectations to the real surgery process.
Mood Board with Milanote
Before sketching a solution, I created a mood board to guide my designs. Inpatient surgeries are taxing on the body and mind. Thus, I decided that the mood of the app needed to be the opposite, calm.
High-Fidelity Ideation
I utilized the mood board to add more detail to screens in order get closer to final product fidelity—wireframes to final draft. Each ideation was followed by user testing.
Usability Testing 1
I conducted usability tests with 5 participants both in-person and virtual in order to get initial feedback on the low-fidelity designs and learn what aspects were less intuitive.
Usability Testing 2
After addressing the issues from the high-fidelity usability testing, I conducted another usability tests with 5 new participants.
Final Prototype
Final draft for high-fidelity designs, mock-up (not used in usability testing).
Conclusion
I interviewed patients who had their first or fourth surgery and learned that they feel very strongly about controlling their privacy settings, alarms, and schedule. I also learned that the app needs to be front-loaded with information during home-recover during usability testing because app use diminishes with time.
The surgery app is not specific to a surgery type or healthcare institution. For the next step, I want to design the healthcare provider interface. Regarding the mobile app, I want to work on features specific for caregivers, such as keeping them informed about the surgery time and success.
The project made me more empathetic for people who have to experience undesirable life events, and the entire design experience humbled me.
Thank You