HANSI ZHU
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Overview Goals Research Design Final Product Reflection

Overview

A lightweight, single-purpose solution to the nightmare of medication tracking for the aging, digitally illiterate subsection of prescribed Americans.

Responsibilities

  • UX Researcher
  • UX Designer
  • UI Designer

Tools

  • Figma
  • My notebook <3

Team

Solo project

Timeline

Jun 2024 (10 days)

☺ Goals

Idea Synthesis

I got it from my mama!

My mother recently began taking a series of antibiotics that had to be ingested at two different times each day. She set up a morning and an evening alarm on her phone to remind herself—but every time the alarm went off, she was miraculously in the middle of something else. Thus began the vicious, dreadful cycle: turning the alarm off temporarily, and then wondering a few hours later whether or not she'd ended up taking the meds at all.

I tried to help. I walked her through Medication via the iOS Health App, but she shooed me away after the fifth onboarding screen asking for details that she did not want to go through the trouble of inputting. I remembered then that I had committed to taking a daily multivitamin tablet which, as a result of it being low priority, I was frequently forgetting to take as well. If I couldn't even manage my own med-taking system, then it was even less realistic to expect my early-Gen X mother who barely knew how to use her phone to do it.

Scaled Upward

This got me thinking about the demographic of people for whom taking meds is actually critical...

The FDA estimates that ~68% of Americans adults take some form of daily medication, and within each age group, that number breaks down into:

Further, the Venn diagram of people over 60 years old and people who are tech-savvy looks a little like this:

Problem

It's already difficult to keep track of your meds. Those who most need to take them are the ones most likely to struggle to do it properly.

Pain Points

Opportunity

How might we simplify the medication process to help older med-takers painlessly and self-sufficiently adhere to their regimens?

Product Goal

An accessible tool that requires the least amount of time and energy to remind and track medications so that med-takers can take their minds off their meds and better focus on their lives.

So how'd I get here?

☺ Research

Personas

Reminders are needed most by people in either the late or early stages of their lives

After conversations with 16 med-takers, I identified two primary personas from the older, less tech-savvy demographic, and two secondary personas from the demographic of people newly entering adulthood.

Empathy Map

Across all life stages, those who struggle with med routines generally have the same goals

My aggregate empathy map revealed that my greatest user challenges lied in integrating a non-invasive routine into users' daily lives and providing them with a sense of self-sufficiency.

Competitive Analysis

Existing solutions fall short in accessibility, focus, and efficiency

The apps with the largest market share in the med tracking space either overcomplicate the onboarding process or serve only as a feature of an app with a greater functional purpose. Both of these flaws contribute to extra initial confusion and a steeper learning curve. Additionally, I tracked my own meds with all three of these apps during the course of this project—and for all of them, I noticed visual clutter and superfluous interactions that created noticeable friction over time.

Feature Matrix

Eliminating complexity by reducing scope

To ensure the simplest experience, I sought to incorporate only the elements that were essential for completing the core tasks of reminding and logging. The goal was to provide the exact features that would get the job done while still feeling smart and reliable.

☺ Design

Ideation • Visual Design

Crafting the ideal log card

After onboarding, the log card is the only feature that users will likely interact with every single time they launch the app. Thus, it was crucial for the card to be both easily digestible and fully comprehensive.

Simultaneous dashboard construction

I also devoted special attention to the configuration of the main dashboard. As I iterated, I prioritized designs that enabled a sense of stablity and intuitive navigability.

Here are a few snapshots of the slow trudge it took to get there:

The design I settled with incorporates the most successful parts from across the stages of mid-fi iteration. Most notably, it uses large swaths of color and status-based categorization to allow the user to assess daily progress in one quick glance.

Ideation • Interaction Design

The balance between requiring fewer steps and preventing erroneous taps

Although the goal was to minimize the number of taps needed to log intake, it was more important that that flow mitigates room for error. To ensure this while keeping it effortless, I made the log flow consist of two taps: one to select a card, then one to either confirm, snooze, or skip. To further combat accidental logs, I added a series of dynamic progress markers that provide a buffer against the chances of a mistake going unnoticed.

But if you do happen to make a wrong move, the undo button carries out an immediate reversal of the mistake in one tap.

Ideation • Functional Design

An experience that's quick, intuitive, and forgettable.

The primary entry point for most users on a regular basis is through the alert system. I adapted the two-tap log system to this flow so that tapping on the notification launches the app already prepared at the Confirm stage. The app's light weight allows for a fast loading time and smooth progression that gets the user in and out in a matter of seconds.

Easily edit medication after it's already been established

Prescriptions change. The most common place that digitally-unfamiliar folks face trouble while using apps is at transition points, when something needs to be edited. I streamlined this process by allowing edit mode to appear on tap.

Granular Design Decisions

How can I squash the learning curve?

I turned to my information architecture to create the most intuitive and simple environment within the app. With efficiency and usability as the utmost priorities, there are hence only two pages: one is the daily tracker, which allows the user to log, and the other is the reminder overview, which allows the user to edit. All features can be accessed through either one of these pages.

Status digest via widget!

If opening the app for a status check is too cumbersome, the user may choose to view it directly from their home screen through the Capsule widget.

Human Considerations

Impatience upon onboarding

If a first-timer user downloads this app because they want something simple, then a huge series of requirements in the Add Reminder phase would exasperate them. Throughout user testing, the most pronounced pain point was onboarding fatigue.

To combat this, I condensed the entire Add Reminder process into four steps. Notably, I combined the dosage amount and reminder frequency into one step, and I created expandable instances like Custom Days which only appear if the option is selected. I also added a progress tracker in the form of Steps Left to further motivate the user to complete the task.

Low commitment starting from the initial launch

Many people don't want to be on medication—it could be a reminder of weakness or deficiency, and many users had stated that they would prefer their routine to only be a small part of their lives. To mitigate the helplessness that accompanies dependency, I wanted the app itself to feel disposable. The user should not feel chained to it—they should just use it and delete it whenever.

As a result, the initial launch takes users straight to their first Add Reminder flow. There is no creating an account, no tutorial, nothing which could encourage any sort of subconscious investment in the app itself.

Focus on being a routine assistant rather than a health app

I took care to reframe instances of medication references into neutral reminders. The app copy uses Add Reminder rather than Add Medication because medication should only be a small part of one's life, and reframing the medications simply as reminders helps the regimen feel more detached from the user's identity. This is preferable because we do not want to make their regimens feel larger than they themselves want them to feel.

☺ Final Product

The User Experience

Lightweight. Easy. Fast.

☺ Reflection

Rapid-Fire Takeaways

Bring back single-purpose apps!

This was an extremely fulfilling project to take on, especially because my progress had the potential to directly aid the existence of someone I care about in a concrete manner. This was also my first-ever end-to-end product design project, completed with the help of online resources and a few brute-force working sessions. While my priority was to give myself a foundational overview of each step in the digital product design process, I found myself observing some inflexible truths that 1) I could only realize through getting my hands dirty in the work, and 2) are already re-informing my personal design practice.

Thank you for reading...