MedLog App for health tracking — UX case study
Overview
MedLog is a mobile application concept that allows users to track their health by logging laboratory and daily (ex. glucose) test results, symptoms, and more. Other yet important functionalities include uploading test result files or photos and tracking medication, as well as setting up medication reminders.
This application is a final project for the first month at Brainster boot camp. It’s an individual project for which I had 1.5 weeks — that’s the timeframe from coming up with an idea to developing visual design and user testing. Thanks to feedback from our amazing instructor, Damjan Obal I managed to create something I’m really proud of.
The Problem
In Poland, there’s no accessible centralized system storing medical documentation from both public and private clinics. As a result, citizens have to store their medical documentation in paper form. Paper documentation is difficult to organize and is prone to get lost or being damaged. In order to keep track of changes in one’s health going through collections of documentation necessary.
The Goal
Developing a health tracking app that allows users to log medical test results and track changes over time, as well as upload documentation and access them from anywhere.
Timeframe
12 days
Responsibilities
Discovery, ideation, design, testing
Deliverables
Strategy Blueprint, Desk research, User Interviews, Competitive Analysis, Personas, Value Proposition Canvas, Task Flows, IA, Sketches, Low and High Fidelity Mockup of the mobile app
Tools
Figma, UsabilityHub, Google Forms
Inspiration
As we had complete freedom in choosing the topic for the final project I decided to solve one of my own problems.
In the past year, I’ve been visiting doctors and doing laboratory tests more often than before. Lots of tests and visits to doctors mean lots of test results, reports all in paper form.
For a better understanding of my health issues, doctors would ask me to show my medical documentation. Most often I didn’t bring it with me nor had instant access to it.
The main problem — not having (access to) medical documentation resulted in frustration, not the most effective medical care, more visits, and more money being spent.
The Process
In the design process, I followed a user-centered approach and applied Design Thinking methodology.
DISCOVERY
Hypothesis
Before moving forward with the research I formulated 3 hypotheses that guided me through this design process stage.
- In Poland, there’s no accessible centralized system storing medical documentation from both public and private clinics
- The majority of Poles store their medical records in paper form
- People are prone to lose or damage printed medical documentation which is also difficult to store
Through the research findings, all of them were proved true.
Desk Research
The key finding of this stage confirmed the first hypothesis. I learned that in Poland there’s a centralized system storing medical documentation of citizens. However, the documentation stored comes only from public clinics. Documentation from private clinics, popular among Poles, is not included in the system.
What’s more, based on Eurostat data, an average Pole is seeing a doctor over 7 times per year and this number is on increase.
Competitive Analysis
For this part of the research, I identified 4 direct and 2 indirect competitors. The former include strictly health and medication tracking apps, while the latter blend fitness and health tracking. Through this analysis, I identified opportunities for MedLog and patterns in functionality and visual design.
Key Findings:
- 5/6 apps have limited health parameters (ex. glucose, weight). Users aren’t able to choose or add parameters most vital to their condition.
- Personalized feedback. In 4/6 apps the new user has to go through onboarding — provide information on their age, weight, sex. Based on these apps give feedback on the measurements entered.
- Only 1/6 allows users to upload documentation (pdf, jpg, take a photo).
- 5/6 keep it blue, simple, formal-looking.
User Interviews & Survey
To find out more about my potential users, I conducted 6 interviews and launched an online survey. The questions focused on how are people concerned with their health /if and what health issues they suffer from / frequency and type of medical examinations / if and how they track changes in their health /methods of storing documentation and issues related to that.
Since my online survey was answered by 13 people aged 20–30, only 3 of which are Polish, I decided not to use the majority of the data obtained. The main information, that was also validated in user interviews and desk research is the most common diagnostic tests and most important to one’s condition diagnostic tests.
Later on, I consolidated learnings from interviews and the survey in an affinity map.
Key insights:
- Adult children of elderly take care of their parents’ health and track it
- Parents of children to 20 years old take care of their health and track it
- Medication (dosing, frequency, and time of administration) is even more important than medical examination
Personas
Based on interviews I identified two types of users. One is a young person already suffering from health issues due to a sedentary lifestyle and stress. The second is an adult taking care of their closest family members who are not able to take care of their own health.
Before moving on to the ideation phase I decided to create user journeys and a value proposition canvas to help me brainstorm solutions.
IDEATION
The research made it evident that users’ needs go beyond my initial assumptions. A major finding, with great influence on the app design, is the huge importance of medication. MedLog gained one more functionality — from being strictly a health-tracking/medical records storing app it became an aid in daily life which includes administering medication.
Other ideation techniques that I used include SCAMPER, worst possible idea, and analogies.
Task Flows
User interviews and allowed me to understand what are users’ pains, goals, and needs I could create user task flows. Each of the flows represents one of the main goals. These task flows proved to be extremely helpful when working on Information Architecture.
Information Architecture
Once I understood what tasks users will have to complete to reach their goal and what functionalities the app has to have it was time to give it a structure.
Wireframes
The next stage was creating wireframes. As my time was very limited I decided to limit myself to the most crucial screens allowing the users to accomplish their goals as defined in the task flows.
TEST & VALIDATE
As a UX designer, it’s extremely important for me to answer needs in the most efficient and appropriate manner. User testing, applying changes as needed and further iterations are crucial parts of the process.
Card Sorting
When the structure of the MedLog app was ready it was time to test it with users. Online unmoderated card sorting and live moderated card sorting were conducted with a total of 7 participants (2 for live test, 5 for online test).
Even though participants didn’t agree on everything, their responses, and structure of key functionalities were in line with Information Architecture created.
Feedback provided by the testers proved very valuable and resulted in amending information architecture.
Usability Testing
Had amended the structure and functionalities of the MedLog app I moved on to the high-fidelity wireframes and prototyping. The prototype was created in Figma.
Having very little time left I recruited 1 participant from my closest circle. The participant was asked to log a glucose record, add new medication and set reminders, upload a diagnostic test pdf file, and find doctors he’s visited previously.
The participant was able to perform all of these tasks without any problems.
FINAL PRODUCT
The final product of my 12 days project is a high-fidelity wireframe. In regards to the design, I decided to use different shades of blue —it represents trust, knowledge, tranquility and is commonly used in the healthcare industry.
PROJECT LEARNINGS
- Setting a strategy before the project kickoff is amazingly helpful, especially when the time is very limited. Having a clear plan, with all tools and methodology, saved me lots of time which I used for additional testing.
- Usability over visual design — as a beginner designer familiar with UX projects on Dribbble I was at first very stressed about the visual part of the process. I was, definitely wrongly, convinced that every single case study and every project has to look beautiful. Competitive analysis and user interviews proved that usability and functionality are the very most important characteristics of every interactive tool.
