2017 / INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE + WEB UI + VALIDATION
ROLE
Lead Designer
OVERVIEW
Docway is an mobile application — for both IOS and Android — that connects the health care provider and the patient. The app has 2 different versions, one for doctors and another one for patients. In the doctor’s app, the professional is able to determine which schedules he/she will be available for Docway’s requests, create calendar exceptions, accept consultations, write obituary, etc. As for the patient’s version, the application really looks like Uber: the patient chooses what kind of professional he/she needs and what are the symptoms, they can say where they are (home, work, hotel) and choose within a list which professional they want to go to their location to make the medical appointment.
SCENARIO
At the time Docway had a strictly institutional website and its operation occurred only in the applications mentioned above. The goal was to redesign the site and create the new doctor’s log on area and patient’s appointment request flow for desktop.
However, the main focus of the project was to find out how to improve doctors’ experience inside Docway’s new website, since most of these professionals are quite traditional and have a certain dislike for technology. In addition, the company aimed to increase it’s health professionals base so users could have a wider range of available professionals so our challenge was to make the website simpler and more attractive to doctors.
DIVING IN LIKE A SUBAQUATIC EXPLORER
To start the project with a solid knowledge foundation, I’ve started looking at the app’s reviews in the App Store to understand how users perceived the platform. Later, I’ve also informally chatted with some users to understand what was important to them while requesting a medical appointment at home.
However, due to our primary focus on improving the doctor’s experience, I set out to conduct an in-depth research with some healthcare professionals who were already using the application and with those who had never used Docway before. So I’ve written the entire research script and contacted doctors to recruit them for our chat. Then I’ve conducted the research in the company of an android developer who was writing down everything the doctors said during video calls or in person interviews.
That was a really interesting exercise because the doctors gave us key information about how was their relationship with their schedules, what their work model and relationship with Docway was, what they considered important when receiving a medical appointment request, how they wrote reports and so on.
BADASS DOCTORS
For this part of the project my focus was to bring more credibility to Docway’s platform through relevant information about the company and it’s most engaged doctors. In addition to telling users what Docway was and where it came from, I’ve created a “Featured Doctors” area where the best professionals inside the platform had a profile with information about their work experience, number of past in-app appointments and patients reviews about the doctor’s service in order to enable the user to meet the best doctors on the platform.
REQUESTING A DOCTOR IN A SMART WAY
My primary goal for requesting a doctor was to create a smart, quick and simple flow in which the user could find the best doctor for their needs. With the new flow users could filter the medical specialty, place of care (home, work, hotel, etc.), date and time of appointment and a price limit. After filtering they’d just choose the professional within a list of available doctors that matched the pre setted filters. The request would be made in a simple way and after asking for a doctor the user would see a small status dashboard that contained the request’s datails and would give feedbacks about their medical appointment and also the possibility to cancel it, if necessary.
CHANGING THE ROUTE
When we’ve started the project one of the main goals was to understand how doctors relate to appointment scheduling and how Docway could have a better agenda experience for the desktop version.
With the research we conclude that the interviewees preferred to use practical and already known methods for scheduling — like Excel. However, “up-to-date” doctors like to use electronic methods like Google Calendar because it’s easy, in the cloud, shareable, and functional.Due to that, I relied a lot on Google Calendar for Docway’s calendar redesign since the application is well accepted and has an overall good experience.
However, during the interviews it became clear that the current agenda was not a problem for the platform’s professionals, but rather the lack of information about the patients and their symptoms when doctors received a request for medical appointment.
The most important data for doctors depends on the professional’s specialty. In the case of pediatricians, it is very important to know the child’s height, weight, age, symptoms and whether he or she is currently taking medication and, in addition, they need to know who is responsible for the child. For other specialties, it is necessary to have a valid contact info, which specialty is being requested — in case the doctor is registered with more than one specialty -, symptoms, clinical data and to differentiate who is the patient and who is the payer.
To solve this problem, I’ve created an area called “Patient’s Info” on the checkout screen that asks the user if the person who is requesting the appointment is actually the patient and if the answer was negative we would ask the patient’s name. In addition to the name, I’ve also designed an input field in which the solicitant could report what the symptoms were and whether the patient was currently doing a treatment or was taking any medication.
Thinking about the doctor’s side, the solution I found was to create an “Appointments” tab within the doctor’s account. In this area the professional could see who the patient was, what day and time the appointment would happen, where it would occur and all the medical information that was requested to the patient on the checkout screen, such as symptoms and meds.
I am very proud of this project because it was my very first UX work and I was the only product designer involved. I’ve learned a lot about the medical field and how to delve into a problem with practical methods of design thinking, usability heuristics and in-depth research! :)
Don’t hesitate to send me a message, I’d love hearing from you and I’d never refuse a nice chat + coffee: juliaxavierfernandes@gmail.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-xavier-2847555b/
