Doctar - UX Case Study
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Teleconsultations in the pandemic
The User Experience approach to develop and offer more agility and possibilities in the interaction between healthcare professionals and patients in the COVID-19 scenario.
The Challenge
When analyzing the pains of physicians, we included healthcare professionals without medical training, and realized these pains extends to most of them, so that the intended solution would be usable for the entire healthcare segment. This understanding was validated during desk research, which revealed players successfully attending a wider healthcare scope in the segment.
On the other hand, patients tend to prefer free and easy-to-use solutions, many of which are scared and in isolation, having as main concearns the quality of healthcare professionals and exposing themselves unnecessarily.
Current Scenario and the Problem
The installation of the pandemic reduced the demand for face-to-face consultations, professionals who attended only in person found themselves in need of resuming their activities at “normal” levels, needing to adapt to the new reality. The modality of teleservice in this context has become fundamental, accelerating the subscriptions to teleservice systems by professionals, healthcare institutions and patients.
Data from researches conducted between 2018 and 2020, show that there was already a growth curve in the segment before the pandemic. In this period alone, the number of Healthtechs in Brazil grew by more than 50%, and with the pandemic scenario there was a sharp acceleration in the segment numbers.
Business objectives and strategy
We seek to outline the objectives of our solution following the SMART methodology, with Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. Thus, in addition to general objectives, OKRs and KPIs were defined, with some examples below:
Main Goals:
- Have 30,000 users registered in Q1, 20% of those professionals;
- Serve 40% of your patients remotely within 3 months.
OKRs (Objective Key Results):
- KR 1: 50,000 downloads in the first month;
- KR 2: Have at least 6,000 professionals registered at the end of Q1;
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators):
- Downloads rate per month and active users per period;
- Retention Rate and Churn;
Business strategy
To visually materialize the Doctar feasibility and potential as a business quickly and objectively, we synthesize the Business Model Canvas below.
UX Research — User profile and Personas
For this study, two main personas were defined, one at each endpoint of the solution, healthcare professional and patients.
Next we perform the mapping of journey and opportunities for both.
Main opportunities — Patient:
- Search for healthcare specialty and location without login;
- Simplification of scheduling;
- Teleservice, prescriptions and digital exams.
Main opportunities — Professional:
- Simple and straightforward features;
- Easy scheduling management (select, reschedule, cancel);
- Chat with patients (history and safety);
- Teleservice and digital medical records.
Future Press Release
TITLE: Doctar releases App with teleservice
SUB-TITLE: Helping healthcare professionals and patients with a simple and easy-to-use solution is the main of Doctar goal.Doctar is creating an App to improve routines between healthcare professionals and their patients through teleconsultations. The platform will simplify setting the appointments and their developments, putting at your fingertips the information needed to monitor the treatment of their patients and assist in important aspects of their management.
Patients will be able to set appointments, know their value, access prescriptions, exam requests, receipts and attendance history, receive reminders, evaluate and indicate the healthcare professionals they liked, consult receipts and cancel or reschedule their appointments when necessary. Attendance can be made by video, audio or chat. Leaving home to consult with a specialist, wherever you are, it will no longer be necessary.
To download Doctar search the Google Play or Apple Play Store.
First validation step
Once the personas and journey maps initially formulated, a CSD matrix was used to formulate the initial questions to be asked for the qualitative and quantitative research stages.
Then, in order to understand and validate the hypotheses and assumptions listed above, an Impact X Knowledge matrix was elaborated to prioritize which questions would be asked, and we created a list of attitudinal questions for each persona, and obtained 66 patient and 23 healthcare professionals responses.
We believed, for example, that most healthcare professionals had a significant drop in the amount of appointments with the pandemic, which proved as a mistake when evaluating the responses.
Quantitative and qualitative research
All possible answers of the personas (quantitative) were elaborated in multiple choice, maintaining parameters sufficiently accurate to be later measured. Below we have the cuts of the most significant results.
Benchmark
We investigated 08 Healthtechs (Vibesaude, Dr. Consulta, Conexa, Mediquo, Doctoralia, Boa Consulta, DocWay and Einstein Conecta), and eleged the top 3 to guide the definition of features and most adherent user flows to meet the demands of our target audience.
Prioritization of solutions
For the fundamental idea of addressing functionalities adhering to the main pains of the personas, we used the “How might we” method.
How could we facilitate tasks and offer a simpler solution that adheres to users’ needs?
The conclusion about the chosen features is represented in the Impact x Effort matrix.
Click here to see the details and justifications of decisions about prioritized functionality.
The solution
In this stage, the “4-step sketch” was used, allowing to more safely materialize what was previously raised, bringing good ideas about the elements and visual hierarchy needed for the interface and screens to be built.
Wireframes
As we had already started the design sketch in Figma, we followed in this way to produce the prototype in a more agile way. Heuristic principles were observed rule for reducing cognitive effort throughout the design process, to ensure more safety in targeting solutions by testing a slightly more elaborate prototype than one would expect from a scribble at this point.
First usability test — Low fidelity
Once the low fidelity prototype has been completed, we started testing.
Test objectives — Summary
General: Finding out how easy or not was to use the functionalities included in the prototype.
Specific: Observe success/failure metrics, validate what was acceptable, and identify possible failures and consequent adjustments.
Detailing the tests
Below we show the tables with the meanings of the test results.
Visual Identity, Styleguide and Design System
Foundations
The benchmark was used as a guide for the definitions of interfaces, functionalities and navigation flows in general, and inspiration for the definition of colors and fonts.
Logo
The development of the logo had a study on symbology and colors, in which the use of shades of green, color with various associations with nature, balance, and which symbolizes growth and fertility, having strong emotional correspondence with safety and healing power was defined.
Styleguide/Fonts, Colors and UI
The font chosen was Opens Sans Hebrew, with great possibility of being preloaded on users devices, thus reducing load time and improving performance. For the colors of the interfaces was defined a primary palette in light and dark green tones, and a complementary secondary palette in magenta tones, which in its many meanings includes physical healing.
Click here to see the full article on Visual Identity, Styleguide and UI Elements Doctar.
High-fidelity prototypes
Based on the defined Styleguide we designed the mobile (patient), and responsive desktop (healthcare professional) versions.
Interactive patient prototype.
Interactive healthcare professional prototype.
Second usability test — HIGH fidelity
Time to test the adjustments made with the learnings of the first test, applying the same general and specific objectives.
Below is a cutout of the “heatmaps” for setting the appointment of patients and healthcare professionals.
Patients
Search for an endocrinologist and make an appointment with Dr. Patrícia Fernandes.
Professionals
Cancel Alex Mathias’ appointment scheduled for 5/17 at 09:00
Voice and Tone — UX Writing
The tone of communication is fundamental to the identity of any solution, so how Doctar will communicate and seem to users led us to a study for an adequate understanding of how to achieve what is intended to be the user’s perception:
- More direct, serious, formal and respectful, since the relationship takes place with individuals who may not be at their best.
- Fun, irreverent or casual tones would not be appropriate.
- The vocabulary was purposely simplified so as not to seem too cultured. Doctar aims to be accessible and simple, without being simplorious.
Next steps
Considering the growth of the solution in the market, the natural would be to develop a marketing planning to leverage sales of recurring subscriptions, following the metrics defined in Objectives and business strategy.
Later, we could consider an mobile app, even if simplified, healthcare professionals, since many do not necessarily have medical training, not justifying only a version designed for use in offices and secretaries. This audience could already benefit immediately from adding simple deployment functionality to enable or disable sections of the application according to the particular needs of each activity, running responsively in browsers. Anyway, many would be the possibilities to consider in the real world.
Final Considerations
Wow!! Mission accomplished!
This case study was developed over several weeks with many sprints, redesigns, alignments, researches, and above all, study and experiments. During this period, we find ourselves immerse in relevant and precious content for the journey of any UX Designer. We discover and improve skills methodologies of the UX world, a learning sometimes exhaustive, but significantly rewarding: to see this case finished and realize the size of the professional repertoire acquired is priceless.
The most important perception for the good UX Designer became crystal clear: how the user thinks and how we can solve their pains by addressing the business needs.
We also took the opportunity to thank Leandro Rezende, master of ceremonies of this journey, and the entire support team UX Unicorn: Rafael Frota, Jessyca Moriel and João Traini, all of you were important for our evolution in this journey.
Thanks for reading this far!
This study was produced by:
Alex Mathias (UX Research, UX Writing, UX Strategy e UI Design)
alexmathiasux@gmail.com
linkedin.com/in/alex-mathias
Stefano Marcílio (UX Research, UX Writing, UX Strategy)
stefano.marcilio@gmail.com.br
linkedin.com/in/stefanomarcilio/
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