A patient app and corresponding clinician dashboard MVP, that uses machine learning tools to measure the progression and guide treatment of Parkinson's.
Problem
Patient App: users need to be incentized to complete all required daily or weekly exercises, over a long period of time, in order to gain consistent results.
Clinician Dashboard: all the results need to be clearly organized and accessible, so clinicians clearly and quickly understand the data.
Project Goal
Create a patient app that collects data on patients Parkinson's through various exercises and ratings, and helps them better manage their condition and medication. Create a corresponding clinician desktop dashboard that collects all the patient app data and presents it to clinicians easily.
Solution
Patient app: the solution is to create rewards for users to earn as they complete their exercises, minimize the amount of screens and buttons for exercises, and break up exercises into smaller tasks in order to not overwhelm the user.
Clinician dashboard: the solution is to focus on the information hierarchy and create a dashboard that primarily consists of easy to read cards and a tabbed card system, so data can be easily accessed.
About Neu Health
I was hired as the sole Designer by Neu Health, a London based company that specializes in making Parkinson's and dementia care accessible for all. Neu Health enables clinicians, care givers, and patients to tackle this growing challenge with cutting-edge digital technologies designed to make the latest care accessible for all, improving outcomes today and accelerating future breakthroughs. Neu Health builds on 10 years of research and clinical validation by neurologists, neuroscientists, and data scientists from the University of Oxford, with the concept having been trialed and validated successfully in over 1,500 participants, and described in international, peer reviewed publications.
Patient
Our patient is a 65-year-old person living in England who has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Despite facing mobility challenges, they remain active and values their independence. Our patient relies on a daily medication routine to manage their symptoms but does not want to be reminded heavily of their condition. They are not tech-savy but are open to using technology to help manage their condition.
Clinician
Our clinician specializing in Parkinson's disease faces the challenge of managing the care of their many patients and staying up to date with their condition. They lack up to date information on the effectiveness of their patients medications and treatments, and are not able to consistently see their patients in person. This creates a challenge in treating their patients effectively.
Personas
Based off the research and the volunteers that helped with user testing, I created two personas. Each of these personas highlighted the needs and constraints that needed to be focused on. For the patient, this included clear instructions, accessible features, and limited visual results. For the clinician, this included clear information hierarchy, patient overviews, and a variety ofways to view data.
Neu Health provided me with research that included transcripts from discovery interviews with clinicians and patients, challenges clinicians faced when caring for patients, and a list of what scientifically proven tests and exercises need to be incorporated into the app and how they work. From here, I researched accessibility in design, design standards for dashboards, tests, and surveys, and types of incentives to encourage compliance.
As I designed this app and dashboard, I continued to do research and work closely with our lead clinician. Our lead clinician provided examples of charts and graphs that they use in their daily work, allowing me to maintain design standards that clinicians are familiar with. Additionally, I gained a lot of insight through 4 rounds of user testing.
Research
Insight
Patients with Parkinson's can suffer from tremors and can have difficulty with mobility. To make the app accessible to all patients, buttons need to be large and easy to press, and text needs to be large and easy to read. Consistent layouts also need to be integrated to build familiarity.
Even though patients will be completing the same exercises or making the same ratings, multiple times over a longer period of time, clearly written and visual explanations need to be visible.
Patients do not want to be reminded of the degenerative nature of their condition. Make viewing results optional.
Clinicians prefer to have all information on one page. They don't want to be flipping through multiple pages or windows to keep track of information.
Clinicians are already familiar with certain colour coding, symbols, and chart styles. Maintain this design standard for easy adoption.
Increasing Compliance
Ensuring adequate compliance to create reliable and consistent data, was my biggest challenge. Research and user testing showed that users were not always available when a test needed to be taken, did not like tests that were too long, but still wanted to actively contribute data to their clinician to improve their care.
This resulted in a few different design features. An activities screen was designed to clearly show what activities needed to be completed each day. This included how long each tasks would take. Progress bars were added to show the user how far along their tasks they were. Consistent feedback that data was being sent to their clinician was added.
Notifications are sent when a test is ready to be taken. Users could delay or pause any test within a designated time frame. Notifications would be sent to users to remind them of incomplete tests. Users responded positively to this in testing, liking the notifications and how these time sensitive tasks could be made more flexible to their personal schedules.
Additionally, I designed a growing tree with various tree friendly rewards (birds, fruits, insects, etc.) as a visual incentive. The more tests completed, the larger the tree grew. Once the tree was finished growing, rewards would decorate the tree.
Clear Instruction and Accessible Buttons
Users could have a wide variety of cognitive and or motor difficulties. Some users have live in help who would assist them in using the app and completing the tests. It was vital that this app accommodate any difficulties the user may have. Large buttons with clear text were implemented.
Some instructions required the user to hold their phone in a certain hand, a certain way, and in a certain setting. To ensure these requirements were met, so captured data was consistent and accurate, instructional videos were added to some tests.
Viewing and Comparing Data
The Neu Health app collects a lot of data, specifically the improvement or setback of various cognitive and motor functions, corresponding with when different medications are taken, over different periods of time. Clinicians need to see how this data looks over a day, a week, a month, and a year, and be able to chose specific ranges of dates. Additionally, there are medical scores (LEDD, MOCA, etc) that need to be visible at each data point.
The solution was a collection of charts, combining accordions and tabs, with drop down selections to change how the data is shown. The charts itself mimic existing medical charts, so they are familiar to clinicians. The accordion and tab system was designed to create a hub for the charts, allow easy comparisons, and prevent endless scrolling.
Additionally, I designed a new chart comparison section. Here, clinicians can toggle any data on and off, allowing them to easily see trends and correlations.
I designed and made 6 working prototypes on figma. The 4 rounds of user testings greatly impacted the design decisions made and the final app and dashboard.
Here are 3 examples of design choices I made and why I am made them:
Design and Testing
Insight
Tests need to be completed at specific times during the days and after medication is taken. Users are not always available at the time these tests need to be taken. Therefore, time frames have been incorperated with an option to delay or pause testing. Testing has shown this increases overall testing compliance.
Patients may have motor difficulties or vision impairments. All buttons were designed to be easy to tap and all text was designed to be large.
Clinicians need to see charts for each data point but also do not want to flip through many pages or scroll far to see all their charts. Data needs to be separate but centralized.
Achievements
Both Neu Health and I are very happy with the final results of this project. This was a challenging project that pushed me to think and design in new ways.
The Neu Health app is now available on Android and iOS. It is currently being used at the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT) and is working on expanding access to other clinicians and patients.
I was provided with a branding guide that included the logo, font, and colour palette. For this project, I expanded these assets by designing a set of icons, expanding the colour palette, and designed a friendly and clean looking UI style that matched their logo and mission. Illustrations were required for this project but due to time and budget, stand-in illustrations were used.
Branding and UI
Insight
UI needed to be friendly and unintimidating, without being infantilizing or lacking authority. I used bright colours, curves, and friendly illustrations.
Hand Off
At the end of this project, I presented the entire design to my client and the engineer team. During this time, I answered any questions the engineer team had and provided any additional work or information they needed. I was added to their Slack channel to answer any questions and provide design solutions for the last 3 weeks of my contract.
This is the first of 3 information architecture charts. As I designed and tested the prototypes, I had to revisit and reorganize how the app was structured. For example, the first draft included a lengthly onboarding process to capture as much data on the user as possible. Later, this was reduced to the bare minimum and onboarding was broken up into multiple steps that could be completed at the users leisure.
Information Architecture
Insight
The complexity and frequency of different exercises, and the attention span of the user, determines how the app is structured.
The dashboard layout is determined by importance of information.