DESCRIPTION
Elimsoft is a small start-up with a focus on helping people, one culture at a time. It was an honor for me to be able to work with them on creating their first product to help the Asian community, "iVita".
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iVita enables patients to keep in touch with their current doctors, find new specialized doctors, and make their medical visits more seamless. The initial iteration of this application focused on creating a MVP for the the Asian patients community.
MY ROLE
To inform the design of the application, I began by conducting contextual research on the target market. I observed, gathered, and synthesized data from the targeted group of over 50 people within Asian descent. From that user research, I was able to develop the UX project's perspective personas. Based on this data, I designed the native iOS application's user experience and interface from scratch. I produced click-through design prototypes for testing and for developers' sample usage. I also managed all of the user evaluations and produced precise software design spec documentation for the record.
WHO AND WHERE
After the user research, I was able to conclude that our users will mainly be -
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*Please note that due to research constraints, all of these users are within the Asian community.*
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Smartphone users
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Parents
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Adults
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Young Adults
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Senior Citizens
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Teenagers
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And the product will be used basically anywhere that offers the user an internet connection.
THE CHALLENGE
"To develop a medical application for the Asian community that will help them with their experiences when they are visiting their doctors."
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After conducting thorough user research, I was able to better understand the pain points of the Asian patient community as well as understand the doctors' limitations on medical information syncing and excessive patient paperwork. The following became the guiding principles for the app design:
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Easy-to-use for users to find doctors as well as their reviews and to pay for their medical bills
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Provide a view of anticipated wait-time based on prior patients' wait time, despite having an appointment.
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Allow users to pay their medical bills on their mobile devices, as well as keep a digital copy of their insurance card and prescription card.
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Minimize the number of instances that users will have to complete the medical screening forms required every time they visit a new doctor.
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Enable constant connectivity with the medical office by providing a communication channel with the doctor's office administrators to upcoming visits.
SOLUTION
To address the patients' and doctors' pain points, I decided to include multiple functions for the application:
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A search engine for patients to identify doctors
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A real-time queuing feature
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A universal virtual screening form that can be shared across doctors
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Something that the stakeholders really wanted was the ability to allow users to stay in contact with the doctor's office. Instead of building a completely new chat channel for the Asian patients, I proposed that WeChat, a popular Asian chat integration, that can be used as a third-party API integration to serve as the app's chat channel. The stakeholders and users wanted the app to also act as a hub to hold patients' private medical records. However, after thorough research through the medical regulations, the idea was not included in the design because it would breach HIPAA regulations. Additionally, since this app will be used by Asians from varying backgrounds, English and non-English speakers, the interface must be elegant and very simple for anyone to use without having to fuss over the possible language barrier.
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NEXT STEPS
Next, iVitaapp.com is planned to be created as a responsive website. It will be open to the public at the same time the iVita iOS app is released in the app store. This will serve as a base for Android users until the Android version of the app is created. Once the application is released and stable, the cycle will repeat, but it will start off with researching how a different culture behaves around this particular technology and how we can incorporate it together with the Asian culture observations.