PROMs in 21st Century Public Health
The mobile application solution for real-time collection of Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) and health data
Scope
Contextual analysis
Functional Design
User scenarios & Personas
Solutions & Prototyping
User Test
My Responsibilities
User Research & Interview Data Analysis
Definition of User Problems & Requirement Document
User Flows & Prototyping (Collaborative)
Client Communication (Collaborative)
Team Size
3 x UX
1 x UI
Duration
3 Months
(Term Time)
Background
We designed for medical researchers that working with HDR UK to design a smartphone application that supports the real-time collection of health-related data, including both self-reported and those collected via smart devices.
As our clients represented the health data research stakeholders and conducted the initial user research, they were the first point of contact in our design and prototyping process.
Overall Design Procedure
Contextual Enquiry & Analysis
Focuses on this stage: Client Interview -> User Research Analysis -> Definition of of User Problems -> User Requirement Document & Proposed Solutions
From our initial contacts with clients, we know that we are designing an app for users born after 1975, which is a generation with no outstanding technical barriers using smartphones but more concerns about privacy.
From the user research data collected from 18 semi-structured interviews, we spotlighted 4 key aspects that our target users cared about most: Security, Transparency, Interesting, Usability.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, we adopted an abridged contextual enquiry process, by keeping the data colletion process entirely online. Throughout the review of initial user research, we attempted to find answers for 3 main questions:
- What are the types of data the app is collecting?
- What would encourage users to share those data?
- What would discourage them from doing so?
i. Insights from User Research
ii. Constructing the WAAD
Since the information to be analysed involves various themes, facts and perspectives, we decided to use a Work Activity Affinity Diagram(WAAD) to get a better grasp of user problems.
During our brainstorm sessions, all work activity notes were gathered in MS Whiteboard, multiple topic labels were extracted from notes and grouped into clusters, finally find their position in 3 main supergroups:
(A) User Experience Goals
(B) Client’s Functionality Needs
(C) Information Workflow
iii. Extracting User Requirements
Interaction design requirements were deducted from WAAD nodes, retrieving indications of functionality, usability goals or emotional impacts – to generate a list of deliverables.
The table below illustrates how particular users’ concern was linked to User Experience Goals in our User Requirement Document:
Getting insights from own data:
- How do I fit into the global picture
- What are my data’s trends
- No embarrassing comparison
- Health tracked over time
Personalised materials (linked to WAAD)
- Users shall be provided with personalised feedback according to their data inputted [AA1].
- Extrapolation: Users shall be provided with personalised advice on how to improve their health, which are derived from validated sources [AA6; CAB6].
- Users shall be able to find evidence-based educational materials on health-related topics of their interest, for self-improvement [AA4].
To guide our later design, topics that were linked to clients’ top concerns were prioritised by getting a former place in the final document, after all the reviews and discussions.
iv. Design-Informing Model
According to the types of user activities involved, We developed an Infomation Flow Model for all range of app users as well as medical staffs interacting with National E-Cohort data.
v. Scoping & Definition of User Problems
Sketch & Solutions
Focuses on this stage: Design Insipration Collection -> Scenario Sketches -> User Persona -> Designing Components -> Wireframing & User Flows
In this stage, we collected design inspirations and explored the potential solutions to defined user problems. After sketching user scenarios and developing user personas, we followed a sketch-based wireframing process to design basic components and core functionalities with planned user flows, before going into the details of visuals.
i. Collecting Design Inspirations
Collaborative mood boards were used to gather design inspirations from various online sources, which involved 6 different categories:
General Design & UI, Analytic Features, Personalised Education Material, Habit Tracker & Motivator, Wearable UIs, Icons & Vectors.
ii. Exploring User Scenarios
We produced 2 main scenario sketches for the app users, covering potential daily usage apart from occasionally answering self-reported questionnaires.
Scenario 1 – Getting started & set regular reminders for health
Scenario 2 – Recording daily activities and tracking the progress
iii. Designing User Persona
Anna Lindley
Student, 21
A third-year undergraduate that mainly use the app to track daily workout and health data, she does not mind answering PROMs questionnaires regularly but would like to be encouraged by some practical health suggestions.
Jerry Brown
Office Worker, 40
A senior manager with chronic diseases. He uses to track his health with smart devices but is particularly concerned about surveillance capitalism and the security of personal data – he wants to confirm these will be for non-profit objectives only.
Alice Martin
Bakery Owner, 32
A small business owner who has a keen interest in health research and wants to contribute to it. She would like to see the real impact of PROMs data and keep getting updates on recent research progresses. She also values a clear interface and fast data sharing.
iv. Sketching The Solution - Initial Drafts
iv. Sketching The Solution - Detailed User Flows
Iterations & Finalised Design
Focuses on this stage: Proposed Visual Designs -> High-Fi Prototype -> Design Critique & Iterations -> Final Version & Client Feedback
We offered two demo versions for welcome screens and asked our clients to decide which style of visual design they would prefer. Based on clients’ feedback, we focused on the “blue” version to create high-fidelity prototypes and further iterated it according to design critique. After presenting the final design to clients, we received some positive feedback from both clients and supervisors. Takeaways and transferable skills were summarised on the completion of this project.
i. Establishing The Visual Style
Starting from the welcome pages, we provided two visual tones for clients to choose, the former (orange version) was more cartonised and vintage-styled, while the latter (blue version) was more minimal and modernised.
During discussion, our clients shown greater preference to the blue version, hence we decided to continue making high-fidelty prototypes with the “blue style”.
ii. Developing the Prototype
According to our contextual analysis and design, we divided our presentation of final prototype into 4 main solutions corresponding to each of the 4 user problems:
A) Personalised Health Advice – Solution to Boring, Useless & Non-Informative Contents
The screenshot above illustrates how users may access their tracked health data via the home page (dashboard) – by clicking on a certain type of data, they can get detailed, completely personalised feedback including handy suggestions to improve their health.
- Note: All the suggestions provided were from reliable sources such as findings of medical publications gained via Google Scholar. To avoid embarrassing comparison, no scores were related to other individuals’ performances or any “average” figures.
B) Fast and Simple Data Share – Solution to Poor Usability
The screenshot above shows the 2 main ways of sharing data. Through connecting to smart device, users can easily track their health data in few clicks; When answering questionnaires, self-reported measures were supported by easy-to-access instructions, helping them to pick the suitable questionnaire, preferred frequency, also clearly understand the aim of each queston when needed.
C) Connected to Researcher – Solution to Research Transparency Concerns
The app tackles the transparency concerns by enabling our users to connect to all the research they’ve contributed to during a lengthy time period, they may also ask the researcher directly or pick a pre-defined question if they have any concerns or enquiries about the research their data were involved in.
D) Full Sense of Control – Solution to Data Security & Privacy Concerns
Apart from the detailed instruction of data security policies provided in welcome pages (that can also be reviewed from the profile page), users can also have full control over when and how they would like to share their data, as well as easily stop or restart sharing within one click. We believed that the sense of in control provided is essential for users to feel secure and protected throughout their usage.
iii. Improving via Usability Test
Several usability tests were conducted with not only target users but our clients during the iteration process of our design. Some of the improvements we made according to feedback include:
- Accompanying each questionnaire with a small question-mark button, so that users can click to access a detailed explanation for each type of measurement.
- Including a light-weighted social function to encourage users to invite their loved ones and set shared health improvement goals.
- Embedding a tag-recording system to help users track their health figures under different current status (e.g. running, work, high-presssure).
- …
iv. Finalised Design & Client Feedback
The final design was demonstrated to clients as well as our supervisor at the end of the project, and we received some positive feedback as followed:
The design clearly adheres to the main concepts required and appears fairly easy to use.
Getting health data from smart connected devices via Bluetooth is a great idea and adds extra functionality to the application.
It's good that there is some feedback provided to the user on their responses to the questionnaire and the data acquired.
The registration and login pages look very understandable and the questionnaire pages also... It's clear that the user could fill this questionnaire out easily.
The connecting-to-friends and groups and customising goals and reminders is a nice add on which users may well enjoy.
v. Reflection & My Takeaways
During the project, I developed several valuable skills through interaction with teammates, client and users:
- UX Design & Problem Solving – Designing features and interfaces according to client requirements, with a user-centred perspective of thinking. This helps me get into the situation quickly in future user-centred design practices.
- Communication & Interviews – From presenting our work to clients and collecting feedback from users, to handling division in opinions within our small, international team, as well as exchanging inspirations and novel techniques with each other in design critique sessions.
- Teamworking & Covering Multiple Roles – Always thinking of our situation and next steps as a team, being keen to take responsibility whenever it is needed, understanding group dynamics and engaging each other, reacting quickly to any unexpected situations, etc. This helps me to be more confident in playing any role that the team needs me to be in future.
- Time management – Working within a tight schedule, making decisions to strike a balance between quality and efficiency in order to reach a better overall outcome, etc. These time-management skills could help me handle the complex product development process within a tight time limit in future.
- Lifelong Learning – Throughout the process of interaction design, I enjoyed fast-paced learning & exchanging fresh thoughts and useful software/techniques with colleagues. This helps me to keep a sharp mind and be prepared for any future design challenges.