OVERVIEW

THE CHALLENGE

CueMed is a digital healthcare startup focused on creating a product to help increase medication adherence and better medication management. CueMed approached our team of 3 UX designers to help design a healthcare software application and hardware device. 

THE SOLUTION

Our team analyzed previous UX research provided by CueMed,
and defined a new target user group. From there, we created a new Persona and conducted a concept test to validate both hardware and software designs. Results of the concept test guided the iterations for software designs, and provided direction for hardware concepts. 

PERSONA

Our team's UX researcher, Ty, analyzed our client's existing research, performed some secondary research and synthesized all the information into a persona, Nadia. 

Nadia is a single mother and a working professional managing her diabetes medication. She has been recently diagnosed with hypertension and is stressed about managing another medication schedule.  

Nadia's Goals: 

• To manage her hypertension

• Improve her medication regimen adherence

• Find more time for yoga and meditation

My Role: Interaction Designer

Duration: 3 weeks

Tools: Pen, paper, SketchApp, Illustrator, Google Slides

My Artifacts: User flows, hardware design concepts, storyboard, wireframes

Team:
PM/Visual Designer: Mary Walton
UX Researcher: Ty Henderson

Nadia's Frustrations

• Forgetting to take daily medications

• Remembering when to refill medications

• Remembering which medication require food

• Not keeping a regular workout routine

VISION WORKSHOP

To help CueMed define their own voice and tone through
Mary, our project manager, led the visioning workshop with the client and the rest of the team. She asked us to write down key qualities of the product that we thought were most important from the perspective of Nadia, our persona. We wrote them on sticky notes, and together categorized them and labeled them with theme names.

Themes that were most important for CueMed:

• Effectiveness

• Ease of Use

• Security

• Supportive

• Engaging

We finished the workshop session by crafting a vision statement from these qualities for CueMed: 

"Cuemed understands users and empowers them to
achieve their goals in an easy and accessible way." 

This helped the client develop a vision for CueMed based on their target users, and guided me in designing micro-interactions with the hardware design (see Hardware Design Concepts section).

INTERACTION DESIGN

USER FLOWS: UNDERSTANDING NADIA'S CURRENT STRATEGIES

In order to craft a new solution for Nadia, I first created user flows of Nadia’s current medication management strategies. This helped me understand Nadia's decision-making process  when utilizing her phone’s alarms and calendar alerts to remind her of her medications. Understanding these flows allowed me to see some problems in her current methods, and provided the basis for creating a newer, better product.  

USER FLOWS: NADIA USING CUEMED's PRODUCT

After understanding Nadia's current medication strategies, I created a new user flow of Nadia using CueMed's phone application. In the user flow on the right above, Nadia is entering in a new medication schedule for her hypertension. In the user flow, Nadia would have to make key decisions such as entering in her medication name, dose strength, how many times she'll need to take it, what times, and whether or not she wants reminders. 

SKETCHING & DESIGN STUDIO

As a team, we sat down together and performed a Design Studio exercise where we all rapidly sketch out software screens for CueMed’s mobile application. We decided to focus on one of the user flows for Nadia, particularly the “Adding Medication” flow because Nadia would need to input her new hypertension medication schedule.

INITIAL SOFTWARE DESIGN

Taking the hand-drawn sketches and the breadcrumb idea from the Design Studio, I refined the screens by creating low fidelity wireframes using SketchApp.

Some other strong ideas from the Design Studio that made it into the wireframes was the “Add Medication by Photo” feature, where a user can take a photo of the prescription label and the phone application would recognize the prescription information, and auto-populate the form fields with the necessary data immediately.

Another important feature that was explored in the Design Studio was the ability to sync the medication schedule with the hardware. The phone application would give Nadia the option to sync a medication schedule with either a specific compartment or a series of compartments. That way, each of the compartments containing the pills would be aware of when and which pill needed to be taken.

CONCEPT TESTING & KEY FINDINGS

Mary and Ty worked together creating the concept test while I was working on creating the user flows and the software wireframes. They split the concept test into 3 parts:

Part 1: Interviews
Part 2: Software Test
Part 3:  Hardware

The Software Test is most important to the interaction design process, and the results of that test greatly influenced the design of CueMed's mobile application (see Software Iterations below). But, there are other key findings from Parts 1 and 3 that also influenced the hardware design (see Hardware Design Concepts below). A summary of the concept test's findings are below:

INTERVIEWS

The concept test first began with a short interview portion. Ty asked broad-open ended questions to understand our user’s medication routine, what strategies/tools they currently employed, and any problems or struggles they come across in their medication routine.

SOFTWARE TEST

This test portion consisted of the wireframes I created, and was used to validate the logical process of inputting a new medication schedule. The breadcrumb step-by-step process was evaluated by our users, and their responses became the basis of iterations on the wireframes
 (see Software Iterations below).

HARDWARE

The hardware test was designed by Mary, who created images of different hardware configurations in Illustrator. This test was used to gauge the user preferences of one hardware configuration over another such as: weight detection vs RFID sticker, a platform format, or pill organizers vs pill bottles.

SOFTWARE ITERATIONS

From the Software Test's portion of the concept test, I found that users had some frustrations with the wireframes I created. Their feedback guided me into making the following improvements: 

Problem #1: Dose Schedule
Users were getting confused by the terminology of “Times of Day.” They were conflating with the number of doses they had to take in a day, with the actual time they needed to take the medication. 

Solution: This was cleared by completely taking away the “quantity aspect” and instead giving the users the option to add as many doses as they needed in a single day, by pressing the purple “+” button.

Problem #2: Special Notes
Users were confused why the "Display Special Notes' toggle was on the 'Reminders' screen instead of on the first screen where they can input in information in the text box.  Users preferred being able to adjust settings of Special Notes in the same area. 

Solution: Move the toggles to the Special Instructions section to allow users to adjust settings as needed. 

Problem #3: Add Medication by Photo
 Users did not want to take photos of the prescription label, because taking photos on the curved structure of the pill bottle was difficult and more work than necessary. Instead, users said that taking photos of the pill engraving was more useful. Pill engravings have a unique identification code and can be easily referenced online to identify the medication, and users appreciated this feature more. 

Solution:  To solve this problem, we encouraged our users to take pictures of the pill’s engraving, so that the phone application can auto-populate the form fields with the correct information referenced online.

Problem #4: Step-by-Step vs. Long Form
In the most surprising response ever, our users wanted to input all the relevant information into one screen as opposed to the step-by-step process our team felt so strongly about. Users did not want to have to switch from screen-to-screen to input the information and instead wanted all of it up front. 

Solution: I changed the wireframes by combining all the steps into one long scrolling form page. with section headers. 

HARDWARE DESIGN CONCEPTS

INITIAL SKETCH STUDIES

From Parts 1 and 3 of the concept test, users expressed their concern over the weight sensor feature, questioning the reliability of the sensor's sensitivity in detecting small changes. In fact, one user said, "I want the pill box to tell me what to do rather than to have to weigh it. I don't want to do more work." 

Another interesting find is that our users preferred the pill organizer over the pill bottles. This helped them stay organized and reminded them to take medications. Other big takeaways from the concept test, was the desire for a portability option. 

To accommodate these desires, I started to sketch out some concept ideas for a smart pill organizer.

I was primarily thinking about the physical shape,  and looked into other product fields to gain inspiration and understanding of compartmentalization features.

This meant looking at different pill bottle and organizer shapes, portable cases, jewelry boxes, organization containers and drawers for offices and closet spaces. I also explored different orientations from vertical to horizontal, and considered a modular design because users emphasized the importance of portability and travel cases.
 
I produced several sketch studies before finalizing a stackable tower concept.

HARDWARE DESIGN CONCEPT

In this stackable tower, Nadia would still get to keep the weekly pill organizer she loves, with the added benefit of an AM and PM compartment in each case. Nadia's travel needs are met by these individual cases because she can easily pop one case off to take with her in her purse. The stackable tower also saves on counter space with its vertical orientation.

Other notable features in this design is the LED lights that emanate CueMed's brand colors, a specific day's morning or evening LED will light up indicating which compartment Nadia needs to take her medications from. When Nadia takes her medication, snapping the individual case shut will alert the tower (and the phone application) that she successfully took her medication. 

Other micro-interactions I thought of stemmed from the Visioning Workshop mentioned earlier. Recall that from the Visioning Workshop, CueMed wanted to be understood as a brand that "engages, supports, and empowers" their users like Nadia. 

From these qualities, I thought of ways Nadia would be encouraged by using the stackable tower. These could possibly include, for example, a colorful light display upon a 100% medication adherence rate. Or, it could possible play an upbeat chime each time Nadia remembers her pills. Other micro-interactions include situations where Nadia might have missed a medication, where a LED can glow a soft red to indicate a missed pill. 

Overall, the stackable tower is meant to encourage Nadia and give her the positive support she needs for her medication. 

PRODUCT VISION SCENARIO

I created a storyboard of how Nadia would interact with the new hardware and software product. Nadia gets up early one morning for a meeting, and finds that the CueMed tower is lighting up, telling her its time for her daily pills. She takes her pills and is delighted when it plays a successful chime. 

Knowing that she has more pills to take later in the day, she breaks off one compartment and takes it with her. Later, Nadia receives a congratulatory message on adhering to her medication schedule. 

NEXT STEPS FOR INTERACTION DESIGN

While this project only lasted 2 weeks, there are plenty of ways CueMed's product can be further refined in the future. With further testing and refined iterations, CueMed's product can provide Nadia a more successful approach to managing her medication. Some next stage iterations can include: 

• Usability testing of the new wireframes

• Dashboard screens, medication reminder/notifications

• Create "syncing with hardware" screens to connect software and hardware together

• Create physical prototype of the hardware

• Testing of the hardware prototype