insight
A platform that provides patients with understandable, meaningful information about their blood test results
Overview
Role
User experience
User interface
User research
Team
Solo designer with mentorship from senior designer
Timeline
7 months
Tools
Figma
Dovetail
Whimsical
Background
Blood tests play an important role in our health care. They provide extremely valuable information about our health and bodies. They can be used for different reasons, including diagnosing a condition, monitoring an existing condition or treatment, or checking our overall health.
The problem
Blood test results can be difficult to decipher – leaving patients feeling uninformed and disconnected from their own health care.
The goal
Create a supportive experience for patients to understand their blood test results so that they feel empowered about their health.
Research
To better understand patients’ experiences with understanding test results and their needs and pain points, I conducted user interviews. I interviewed 5 participants that have had blood testing done in the past year and have reviewed their results.
I uncovered 3 main themes and associated insights from my research data:
All 5 of my interviewees expressed a lack of accompanying information or adequate explanations from their doctors.
In order to get additional information quickly, all 5 of my interviewees chose to look online, rather than reach out to their doctor.
3 out of 5 of my interviewees lack a direct way to track their results over time in order to view changes or trends in their health.
The main takeaway – my interviewees often have unmet information needs at the time of receiving their results.
This then raises the question, how might we support patients in learning about their results so that they feel informed about their health?
Ideation
Bridging the gap between what patients currently receive about their results and what they want to know through information and personalization.
Because information needs were so emphasized on in my research findings, I wanted to create something that would be informative and educational for my users. But I also wanted it to feel personal – because what is helpful is different for everyone. Providing personalized information ensures that every user can get the help they need.
I created a set of user stories to help me determine what functionalities to include and prioritize in my designs. These user stories allowed me to focus on 3 major user flows.
As a patient, I want to access my results and personalized resources so that I can see what is important and relevant to me.
As a patient, I want to learn about my results so that I am able to understand and make informed decisions about my health.
As a patient, I want to track my results over time so that I can view changes or trends in my health.
Design
Low-fidelity designs
Starting with design sketches allowed me to get ideas down on paper quickly and think about layout, content, and hierarchies.
To get some early feedback before moving to higher-fidelity designs, I approached friends and family with my sketches. I gave them brief tasks to complete, such as view a test result and view a test trend.
Although I was only testing with sketches, I uncovered some important learnings:
Users were not familiar with test panel names but were able to recognize individual test names. Changing the browse test results page to show all test names in a test panel can make finding results easier.
Filling out health details was initially part of the sign up process. Users expressed that they wanted to choose when to provide this information. Moving this step to after the sign up process can give users flexibility on when to provide this information.
High-fidelity designs
After creating high-fidelity prototypes, I iterated on my designs 3 more times based on learnings from user testing and mentor feedback.
Health articles are a prominent part of the app, so I wanted to bring attention to the credibility of the information. Highlighting doctors and their expertise can reassure users that they are reliable sources of health information.
The app can provide more accurate interpretations and recommendations if they take users' health backgrounds into account. To motivate users to add this information, they have the ability to rate the helpfulness of recommendations. If something is rated as unhelpful, they’re nudged towards adding or updating their information.
Final solution
Get personalized recommendations based on your health context, interests, and ratings.
Learn about your results with understandable explanations, visuals, and relevant health articles.
View how your results are trending over time with tips to improve or maintain those trends.
Learnings
Talking and testing with users early on allowed me to learn valuable insights that I could never get from just dwelling over things by myself.
Thinking through and taking into account "less ideal" scenarios – such as empty states or content that varies in length or size helped me to design more complete user experiences.