Timeline
February - March 2022
Tools
Miro, Figma
My Role
User research, user interviews, facilitate a brainstorming workshop, UI design
THE CLIENT
Sustain Health is an acupuncture and Chinese Medicine health centre located in Melbourne. As a clinic, they believe in the complementary use of both Eastern & Western Medicine to treat conditions such as infertility, cancer, mental health and gut problems. Majority of their patients are currently women undergoing IVF.
THE BRIEF
For this project, Sustain Health wanted us to focus on creating awareness and helping patients better understand how Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and acupuncture, may aid their fertility journey - be it through natural conception, IVF or IUI.
THE PROBLEM
Patients who feel stressed and overwhelmed about infertility, want to try anything that could increase their chances, but face a lack of information on how therapies like acupuncture and TCM can support their journey.
THE SOLUTION
Educate women on Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and fertility acupuncture.
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Toggle between different journeys - natural conception, IVF, IUI or egg/embryo freezing - to best suit your own journey
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Explanations on how TCM and acupuncture aids each stage of your fertility journey
Create a tailored TCM and fertility acupuncture plan.
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A detailed, conversational-style onboarding form about your health and fertility history
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Explanations on the holistic approach TCM follows
An overview of your dashboard.
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View upcoming appointments and tests - with practitioner notes for reference
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Log your progress as you take necessary steps to achieve a healthier body to conceive
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View Chinese herbs you've been prescribed - includes both Eastern & Western explanation
View the final prototype walkthrough here.
DISCOVERY RESEARCH
DESKTOP RESEARCH
A recent study was conducted to investigate the impact acupuncture treatment had on women undergoing IVF.
46.2% conceived in the acupuncture treatment group - more than twice as many than the non-acupuncture group where 21.7% conceived.
The study concluded that "acupuncture improves the clinical pregnancy rate (CPR) in women undergoing IVF."
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
The following competitors were chosen to be analyzed and looked at to draw inspirations on how to layout Sustain Health's fertility section in terms of information architecture and resources.
We conducted a SWOT analysis on their direct competitor and concluded that Sustain Health was the only clinic (we could find) that has an emphasis on Eastern & Western medicine - which gives them a competitive edge over other clinics.
USER INTERVIEWS
We also spoke with 6 experts - which included 1 Western Medicine fertility specialist and 5 Eastern Medicine practitioners.
We wanted to understand their approach to medicine, and their thoughts around how Eastern and Western medicine work, or don't work, together.
INSIGHTS
We grouped and synthesized the information from our interviews and drew out the following insights:
PERSONA
Meet Alicia! Based on all the insights and experiences we gathered, Alicia was created to help our client and the team empathize with patients who have done or are undergoing fertility acupuncture treatment.
DESIGN
HOW MIGHT WE...
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Help Sustain Health better inform their patients and remove uncertainty around Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), so that patients are more confident and knowledgeable about their treatments?
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Help better educate women about their fertility options, earlier, so that they can make the best decision for their own health?
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Help the Western medical community take a more holistic approach to fertility medicine so that women are better informed about all of their options, before choosing a treatment?
*We decided to prioritise the first 2 statements - as the last HMW targeted Western practitioners which was out of our project scope.
IDEATION
I spearheaded ideation sessions with our group of 6 UX designers to brainstorm potential solutions to solve for our HMW statements.
Brainstorming workshop and grouping similar ideas together.
Finally, we came up with an educational and a personalisation tool.
SKETCHES + WIREFRAMES
60% of our users preferred using their mobile device over a desktop computer.
So we began sketching ideas for the mobile version of the site, and soon moved our ideas onto Figma.
Myself, along with 2 other designers were in charge of creating the look and feel of a 'Journey Path' and the layout of the 'Dashboard'.
EDUCATIONAL TOOL
We wanted to create a comprehensive Roadmap (aka Journey Path) for women looking to learn how acupuncture and TCM supports fertility on Sustain Health's website.
PERSONALISATION TOOL
Understanding that TCM and acupuncture takes a holistic approach, we wanted to reflect that through the use of a Dashboard. Hence, we decided to incorporate features - such as tracking of progress through goals, Western explanations on Chinese herbs and necessary lifestyle adjustments - to make the experience engaging for patients.
Feature Refinement & UI Development for the 'Journey Path' and 'Dashboard'
ITERATIONS + USER TESTING
IMPROVEMENTS MADE FROM FEEDBACK
Increase Visibility of Progress Bar
For our onboarding form, a progress bar was included as an indication for users to know how far they were along the form. However, they did not notice it. Hence, we increased visibility of the progress bar by adding numbers and increasing colour saturation.
Title Text for Icons
Users felt the navigation of the dashboard could be improved as the icons did not necessarily translate their intent. To help reduce our users' cognitive load, we included titles to our icons in the next iteration.
Increase Credibility & Trustworthiness
Users also expressed that it was hard to trust recommendations around Chinese herbs as there was not enough information on how it could aid their fertility. Hence, we have included additional information to help increase credibility.
We have also placed their recommended dosages on the first screen, for ease of access.
EVALUATION & RESULTS
To evaluate our prototype, we conducted a moderated task-based usability study with 12 users across two rounds - and scored an average overall usability score of 86.9%.
And here's what some of them had to say:
"I love the journey. It is aesthetically pleasing and sleek."
"The site is very thoughtfully put together and the information is displayed in a way which is integrated and not overwhelming."
"I personally like the images and the font, its very young and modern.. in general its very inviting and not too dry or clinical looking. Its still very accessible and approachable which is nice.."
Average score from both rounds of responses to the System Usability Scale surveys
THE FINAL PROTOTYPE
Walkthrough of our final prototype
NEXT STEPS
If we had more time, we would continue to perform rapid prototyping and iterate our designs through A/B testing with our users. As well as, work closely with developers to ensure our designs are feasible and can be made responsive on both mobile and desktop.
REFLECTIONS
Things I've learned:
1. Being comfortable with ambiguity. This project has brought me one step closer in learning how to navigate through ambiguity - asking questions, targeting the right audience and understanding the project scope.
2. Communication is KEY. It's crucial to make sure that everyone has clarity and are on the same page. Since we had lots of ground to cover with such little time, we decided to have daily stand-ups to ensure transparency in communication at all times.