overview

ABOUT THE PROJECT

ACTIVE is a multi-platform, voice-activated, gaming-inspired app that allows patients with neurodegenerative disease Multiple Sclerosis (MS) to track moods, physical ailments, lifestyle decisions and medication compliance. This project was created for Emessence, a healthcare start-up, during Cooper's UX Boot Camp. Cooper is a user experience design and strategy firm in San Francisco.

FOCUS: Product Design, Paper Prototype, Pitch Deck

TIMELINE: 4 days

TEAM: Stephanie Goodson, James Young, Scott William, Jose Lizardo

DELIVERABLE:  Paper concept product and pitch to stakeholders

the problem

People with MS have “good days” and “bad days”. This can be frustrating, since there are so many factors that can affect their overall mood and physical well-being. Doctors have limited time to discuss the many options and treatment plans available after test results are discovered. Often times, people with MS become overwhelmed, isolated and feel like “nothing is working”. 

DESIGN PROCESS

1.  Business Model

2. User Research

2. Scenario

3. Prototyping

4. Pitch Deck

BUSINESS NEEDS

Emessence was looking to build a patient-facing tool to help people with MS understand and manage their disease. The product would coincide with the company's patent pending blood test which aims to revolutionize the way doctors help MS patients find the best available treatment plans.

GOAL:  Better track what happens between doctor patient visits with a key focus on relapse/remitting patients. Create a sticky product that reinforces brand recognition. 

USER RESEARCH

INTERVIEWS | GUERILLA

Interviews were conducted with 12 individuals diagnosed with MS, all at the relapse/remitting stage of the disease. Guerilla research was also conducted by culling patient blogs.

QUESTIONS: Besides medication, what kinds of things do you do to manage your symptoms?  What has been the most difficult lifestyle change you have had to make? Tell me about your last physical challenge surrounding MS? How open are you to discussing your MS with others? In the past, what has motivated you to become proactive in managing your MS? What do you do in order to monitor and/or plot your symptoms? Where do you go to learn more about MS? Can you tell me about who is in your support system? Tell me about your last visit with your doctor? Do you use any wearables?

PERSONA CREATION

  • An affinity map helped group user requirements described by all 12 interviewees.
  • Teams then formed based on focus. Our teams' focus was "Communication".
  • Extreme scales were established to articulate all persona characteristics (right top image below)
  • All 12 intervieews were given an alias and a color-coded sticky.
  • Teams then placed the color-coded stickies related to where their interviewee landed on the extreme scale.
  • Patterns were identified and a persona selected that best reflected both business and the MS patients' user goals.

KEY PERSONA

scenario

EDITH FINDS IT EASY TO COMMUNICATE WITH HER DOCTOR

A storyboard was created to craft Edith's path from diagnosis of MS using the patented blood test and the doctors introduction of ACTIVE that will provide better communication between doctor, her core caregivers, friends and family by giving everyone an open forum for sharing test results, data and feedback. 

prototyping

PAPER PROTOTYPE

With only a day to build, paper prototypes were created to quickly articulate key daily routine check-ins of ACTIVE. The prototypes were personalized by adding Edith's name and rewarding her with cash towards her favorite retail shops.

THE PITCH

PITCH DECK

A presentation deck describing the product in use with its key attributes was created and pitched to Emessence's founder and CFO.

 

PRODUCT ATTRIBUTES

MULTIPLATFORM - ACTIVE Integrates with wearables such as Fitbit or Apple’s watch.

VOICE ACTIVATED - On days when participants may experience blurred vision and other physical limitations, ACTIVE can be voice-activated to make inputting data easy. 

SIMPLE - ACTIVE features an easy-to-to understand, clean, simple interface.

SMART - ACTIVE is able to record and calculate past habits to detect trends in behavior and automatically suggest ways to meditate, make healthy food choices, and appropriate physical activities.

FUN - ACTIVE takes advantage of simple gaming platforms like candy crush and angry birds to make the experience engaging.

INCENTIVES/REWARDS - ACTIVE participants who input data on a regular basis are rewarded with:

  • Cash incentives
  • Donations to their favorite MS charity
  • Free Transportation to medical and therapy appointments
  • Discounts from their local pharmacy

solution

A MULTI-PLATFORM COMMUNICATION APP

The final deliverable, a paper prototype that highlighted key user-centered requirements based on solid user research, was pitched to key Emessence stakeholders.

FINAL THOUGHTS

A lot can be completed in four days! Once the user research was complete, it was crucial that team members identified tasks, assigned tasks and got to work.