BRIEF
THE PROBLEM:
Finding the right occupational therapist is challenging for users.
THE SOLUTION:
Creating an app that allows users to find the right occupational therapist to help them with their specific disability or injury.
MY ROLE:
UX designer
TEAM:
Lian Judy, Sara Reisi, Javeria Aslam, Monique Mendoza, Susan David
TOOLS:
Figma, QuickTime, Photoshop
User Insight Statement
Andy, a hard working web developer, is worried about finding a qualified therapist for his specific injuries. He needs a tool to help him find the right therapist and allows him to have all his information at his fingertips.
Problem Statement
Available online platforms on market were designed for clients with less ability / disability to provide basic information about occupational therapy and the main issue for client is location dependency that they have to call or drive to the clinic to book their sessions. Based on our preliminary study we have observed these platforms do not provide the P2P platform which both therapist and client can communicate and providing services such as following up notifications and appointment reminder, searching their background and access the information from their sessions so they can feel more confident about finding the right therapist.
Now that we have conducted the research and analyzed it, we started designing ConnecTherapy. The app focuses on finding experts with an easy search process that focused on efficacy and safety.
Prototyping
The first common issue we noticed was difficulty locating the ‘search’ icon which you can see on the left side of the screen. We decided to add a button on the dashboard specifically for booking a therapist to ensure easier access.
In addition when speaking about it with one of the TAs, We learned about the Heat Map Analysis, which helped us to take a step further and change the position of the search icon to make it more accessible on the Nav bar.
Some users also had difficulty with navigating the dashboard and looking for the things we had asked them to do during the sessions. To resolve this issue, we added the ‘sessions’ and ‘book therapist’ buttons on the dashboard because they were the most important things our users would do in our app.
We also moved the resources button to the Nav Bar to minimize effort and confusion navigating and finding things on the dashboard.
Another issue that had come up were problems with our prototype links. As you can see, the weekly goals button would take the user to the ‘session’ page rather than the ‘weekly goal’ page, which was actually missing, so we made that page and linked them accordingly.
Updating the dashboard page allowed users to keep track of their appointments and exercises by looking at the charts and hopefully gain motivation and momentum to stay on track.
One user brought up a concern about the frequency of the logout buttons used throughout the app. Originally we had a logout button on the majority of our screens.
For us, it was about accessibility, but as our users out, we had made it too accessible. We decided to place it somewhere still accessible but away from the main features and screens. The logout is now under the profile page options.
The availability options in the therapist’s profile was one of the low priority tasks but we thought it would be a great addition to the app. Our users wanted to see the therapists’ availabilities on the therapist profile page, so we added that information in as well.
Final Prototype
Final Thoughts
Our main challenge was understanding and sticking to only the specific needs of the users from our testing analysis and not getting too bogged down in the “extras” that came up in our conversations with each other. It was difficult to keep our own biases out of the design process and we struggled a couple of times on this before refocusing on what was important to our users.
The field of occupational therapy is changing and the new areas that are being brought in are chronic disease management, preventive care, and obesity. By creating our app that allows users to find a therapist within a certain field we bring a valuable application to the greater population.
In the future we would like to add in features that create a more interactive experience for both users and therapists along with creating a community of like-minded individuals.
ConnecTherapy Full Case Study