How clear & consice data can ease overwhelmed caregivers.
In the span of 4 weeks, the team and I worked closely with the stakeholder and founder of Second Opinion on a mobile app that would equip caregivers with the essential tools to effectively manage, comprehend, and provide care for their loved ones.
Caregiver Decision-Making Challenges
The role of a caregiver presents formidable challenges, demanding constant decision-making and vigilant oversight. Individuals like Martha, who is a dedicated caregiver for her husband, invest substantial time into researching care services and strategies to improve their caregiving skills. However, even with access to resources and medical professionals, making well-informed decisions remains a struggle, particularly during moments of heightened stress.
Empowering Caregivers with a Comprehensive Mobile App
To address the intricate challenges faced by caregivers like Martha, a solution was developed in the form of a mobile app. This app serves as a toolkit, offering caregivers the vital resources to manage, understand, and deliver care to their loved ones.
Crafting an Impactful Solution within a Tight Timeline
Coming into this 4-week project, the stakeholder had previously worked with a UI/UX design team who conducted user research and provided wireframes. However, the stakeholder had decided to pivot direction and further simplify the experience.
To meet this deadline, a dual approach was embraced to leverage both pre-existing user research and conduct a competitive analyses.
This hybrid approach allowed us to capitalize on the prior research's data and insights while allocating adequate time to craft a polished and aesthetically appealing mockup. My responsibilities encompassed orchestrating the patient portal experience, seamlessly integrating and visually presenting health data.
Uncovering Caregiver Needs and Iterative Design
To address the challenges faced by Martha and caregivers in similar situations, our exploration encompassed a thorough investigation of existing market solutions and analysis of research data.
We discovered that while medicine trackers, health data visualizations, and caregiver time management applications existed, they lacked the level of guidance and assistance caregivers needed. The complexity of medical data overwhelmed most caregivers, who didn't know what to do with such complex information.
​We decided to focus on organization and conducted paper prototypes to test the mobile app's organization and navigation. We aimed for an enjoyable and invisible experience, and after two rounds of paper prototyping and iterations with five caregivers, we uncovered new challenges.
Crafting Solutions for Health Data Privacy and Comprehension
The first challenge we encountered was finding a way to input/sync the recipient's health information. The fastest way was to sync the data from the recipient's health device or application, but there were privacy concerns.
In response, we opted for a path where caregivers initiate a data-sharing request to the recipient, ensuring that the latter retains full control over the data they opt to share. This approach aligned with the need for a secure and collaborative caregiving environment.
Another challenge we discovered was that while most caregivers were familiar with health data visualization, they struggled to synthesize and understand the data and, even more importantly, how to act upon it.
To address this issue, we added concise and clear indicators to deliver peace of mind to caregivers and warn them when critical medical care was necessary.
What I Learned
One of the main takeaways from this project was that data visualization is only useful if caregivers know what to do with it. Our usability testing showed that while users could access the data easily, they often struggled to make sense of it and figure out next steps. Most participants paused at the data visualization screen, not because they were stuck, but because they were trying to make sense of the data and figure out next steps. By providing concise and clear indicators, we helped caregivers focus on the most critical information and take action more confidently.
Overall, this mobile app aimed to simplify caregiving and provide caregivers like Martha with the necessary tools and guidance to manage, understand, and care for their loved ones. With actionable insights and easy-to-use features, we hope to empower caregivers and deliver peace of mind during times of stress, making caregiving less daunting and more manageable while improving the quality of care for patients.