Research & Design Portfolio
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Wexel

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Overview

Team:  John Sykes, Bridget Sheffler, Sakshat Goya
Role:  Research & Interaction Lead
Duration: 3 Months
Methods:
Literature Review, Cultural Probes, Sketching, Brainstorming, Pugh’s Matrix, Storyboarding, Wireframing, Paper Prototyping, Usability Testing, Stakeholder Interviews
Class:  MHCI+D Ideation Studio
Client: Premera Blue Cross / Blue Shield

Challenge

Same-day cancellations result in unfilled appointments, making it difficult for patients to get the treatment they need and costing the medical industry billions of dollars per year. We focused our efforts on increasing flexibility and convenience for millennial caregivers given that they are the fastest growing and soon to be largest caregiver cohort in the nation while also being the most resource constrained.

Solution

We developed a last-minute appointment exchange for caregivers and patients that allows cancelled appointments to be filled via a prioritized queue. This helps caregivers find care faster and doctors offices to manage their office queues more effectively.

How might we increase efficiencies in scheduling between millennial caregivers and high demand health services?

 

 

Formative Research

Methods: Literature Review, Cultural Probes, Stakeholder Interviews

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Given the initial prompt of “Helping Caregivers Find Care” my team had a broad problem space with which to work. In order to begin to approach the problem I engaged in formative analysis to better understand the space and identify design opportunities.

We spoke with caregivers and Premera, conducting literature reviews, and distributing cultural probes to caregivers.
Through these activities, data points began to emerge which guided the design response.

Examples of cultural probes created by our participants tracking their mood levels relative to their caregiving schedule.

Guiding Insights

1

Inefficient last-minute scheduling is an issue that affects multiple stakeholders in the the healthcare industry, including patients, caregivers, doctors, and insurance companies.

2

Location and transportation considerations are an important aspect of any caregiver’s schedule. Any scheduling solution should ensure the caregiver is as informed as possible on travel times and methods. 

3

Follow ups and preventative healthcare appointments are some of the most often cancelled, but also the most efficient form of healthcare in terms of cost and care efficacy.

4

There is no typical caregiving schedule and Millennials value flexibility and immediacy.

Based on our research, we focused on addressing last-minute scheduling issues, especially between millennial caregivers and specialty doctors.


Ideation

Methods: Brainstorming, Sketching, Focused Literature Review, Stakeholder Interviews, Pugh’s Matrix, Storyboarding

Brainstorming

In order to form a design response to the problem statement, my team used multiple brainstorming techniques including braiding, 2x2s, and crazy eights to create 99 concepts.

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Downselection

Design Critique

We were able to narrow down our initial concepts to 20 through a combination of design critique and stakeholder feedback focusing on feasibility, desirability, and viability.

Pugh’s Matrix

We scored each of our remaining 20 concepts against the following criteria using Pugh’s Matrix in order to see which ones best addressed our problem statement.

1. Filling Schedules
2. Serving Millennials
3. Improved Care Quality
4. Improved Care Speed
5. Ease of Receiving Care

Storyboards

Each member of the team chose one of the remaining 3 concepts to create a storyboard in order to better envision the use case. We again consulted both caregivers and Premera to elicit feedback on these storyboards and the last-minute scheduling app demonstrated to the clearest value to both sets of stakeholders.

 
 

Concept Creation & Testing

Low-Fidelity Prototype

Methods: Wireframes, Paper Prototyping, Stakeholder Interviews, Usability Testing, Sketching

After sketching some rough drafts of what the product could look like, we created a low-fidelity prototype in order to test paper prototypes with young caregivers in the Seattle area. The team chose 3 key paths of the product for testing: signaling availability, accepting an appointment, and canceling an appointment. These paths constitute a holistic view of the product and took users from the initial stage of finding a doctor and requesting an appointment to final stage of accepting an availability.

The caregivers we spoke to found the concept valuable and provided useful feedback on usability and information hierarchy and features which were implemented into our designs in the next round of prototyping.

Refined Prototype

Methods: Prototyping, Usability Studies

Based on the feedback we received from the low-fidelity prototype testing, we made adjustments to key flows to improve usability. We also fleshed out other flows of the app, like sign up and profile creation for both caregiver and care recipients. Below you can see some of the key flows of the fully realized product and the changes implemented after the initial testing described above.

Finding a Doctor and Setting an Alert

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Cancelling an Appointment

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Key Feature: Focus on Time & Location

Transportation is the #1 reason for cancellations and was a primary concern when booking last-minute appointments.

To address these points, we wanted to put a focus on the location of the doctor in relation to the caregiver.

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Key Feature: Prioritizing Waitlist Alerts

Based on feedback from Premera, we implemented a ‘Reason for Appointment’ function which can be used to inform triage protocol. This allows us to send tiered alerts out based on necessity. 

If there is no response after a set time, the next triage tier would be activated.  

Wireflows


Final Thoughts

What I Learned

Go Broad, then Go Narrow

When we were brainstorming ideas, we had a great range of possible ways to help caregivers find care. This meant that we were able to see an entire ecosystem of issues which we could potentially address, but it also helped us to see which concepts were not feasible or not particularly helpful to caregivers. This broad view allowed us to set context and see which of our concepts really approached the problem space effectively and narrow down our target. Once narrowed, things began to fall into place - we weren’t trying to solve everything so when we came across a feature we weren’t sure about, we could ask ourselves “Does this help caregivers schedule time with doctors?” This helped us prevent feature bloat and make sure we were solving one thing really well.

Use Your Experts

Our most valuable feedback came from our partners at Premera, who knew the space intimately. While we had done extensive research over the past month on caregivers and their challenges, these experts were more knowledgeable and able to advise us on the challenges we wouldn’t read about, like interpersonal challenges and the challenges the American Insurance industry imposes on caregivers. Without them, our project would have been much less cognizant of the constraints.

Constraints Are Your Ally

Constraints tend to have a negative connotation in the business world. After all, they’re things you can’t do so why would you like them? However, while going through the whole design process for Wexe, I realized that constraints are like guidelines which help you figure out what is feasible and viable. This helps you rule out a number of potential avenues and, ultimately, save time and work more efficiently. By embracing constraints and externalizing them, you can save yourself and your stakeholders time and money.

What I’d Change

The Usefulness of Cultural Probes

We were required to complete cultural probes for this project, so we sent out scheduling worksheets to our participants in order to better understand their day-to- day activities. However, they didn’t tell us much we wouldn’t have gotten from speaking with these participants directly. They did provide a nice visual artifact to refer to, but I don’t think that justified their use. Cultural probes can be useful, but not at the loss of actual participant interaction. Speaking with your participants directly allows you to gather further context and ask follow up questions.

Reflection

Prior to this project, I had very little experience within the healthcare space. Interviews and user testing were extremely valuable in helping me gain perspective and dive deeper into the numerous challenges that caregivers face everyday. I hadn’t realized that caregiving had become such a major issue within the world of healthcare as a combined result of the aging baby boomer population and the financial struggles of millennials. The more I learned about the space, the more I was driven to create something that would ease the burden caregivers silently faced.

Premera expressed great interest in the concept when we presented our final project. One of the executives, a caregiver for his mother, admitted he wished he’d had a tool like this to help him balance the scheduling difficulties inherent in his role. This admission stuck with me more than the praise from Premera because it meant we’d succeeded in helping caregivers.