Responsive Web and Mobile Design
Aphoria
Project Overview
Understanding Current Holistic Healthcare Models
Duration
Eight weeks
Tools
Figma, Parrot AI, Maze
Deliverables
Research, product design, UX/UI design, concept, prototype, and testing
Problem
Finding healthcare providers in the U.S. is an arduous, time consuming process, particularly for those who want to try holistic approaches, specifically talk therapy, massage therapy, or acupuncture, before common Western methodologies and treatments.
Solution
Aphoria was designed to simplify and personalize the search and scheduling between patients and holistic healthcare providers. It focuses on science-backed education, customized search criteria including location, insurance, treatment specialties, condition specialties, and simple, customizable scheduling.
Understand
User interviews
Affinity mapping
Personas
Define
Competitor analysis
Problem statement
Feature roadmap
Ideate
Site map
Task flows
Low-fidelity wireframes
Composition exploration
Design
Style guide
High-fidelity wireframes
Prototyping
User Testing
Research plan
Insight indentification
Ideate
Finalize design
It was imperative to learn what similar companies were doing and how they weren’t meeting their users’ needs.
Four competitors, a combination of direct and indirect, were analyzed to gain a more comprehensive understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. After studying what was available, it was discovered that none of the companies offered most of the features that users said they wanted. Of the two direct competitors, only 57% of user needs were being met.
Competitor Analysis
Market Analysis for Healthcare and Appointment Booking Sites
Booksy
Scheduling
Find a Provider
Accepts Payments
Client Reviews
Independent Providers
Multiple Categories
Square Up
Scheduling
Find a Provider
Accepts Payments
Client Reviews
Independent Providers
Multiple Categories
Healthcare Adjacent
Healthcare Adjacent
Five Point Holistic Healthcare
Scheduling
Find a Provider
Accepts Payments
Client Reviews
Independent Providers
Multiple Categories
Healthcare Adjacent
ZenCare
Scheduling
Find a Provider
Accepts Payments
Client Reviews
Independent Providers
Multiple Categories
Healthcare Adjacent
I conducted and moderated 13 one-on-one ~hour long interviews with former and current patients, and holistic healthcare providers. One of the biggest surprises was how many users found their providers through their insurance companies instead of word-of-mouth as previously hypothesized. There was also a very wide range of preferred communication methods including text, e-mail, and phone call.
Interviews were conducted conversationally with open ended and follow up questions including, “What motivated you to seek out a holistic treatment?”, “What frustrates you about your current scheduling method(s)?”, and “When using a site like Aphoria, what features would you expect to have?”
100% of the interviewees mentioned wanting an aesthetically pleasing and easy-to-use site.
User Interviews
Understanding Patient and Provider Insights
The majority of users pay for services through their insurance providers
Users want clean aesthetics and easy-to-use interfaces
Most users consider provider bios to be extremely important in researching and/or choosing a provider
A common pain point is scheduling with a provider who has a busy schedule
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By distilling the specific needs of users into personas that focus on the target demographics, essential features come into focus, such as easy scheduling, inclusive language and filtering, and doing research to find a provider that’s a good match for individual needs.
Target Personas
Connecting Holistic Healthcare Patients and Providers
By focusing on challenges as opportunities, a breadth of ideas came to life. The POVs and HMWs created a strong foundation of impactful improvements, making sure the empathy and care were at the forefront of decision making. With a topic as sensitive and personal as healthcare, it is imperative to keep patient care and privacy at the forefront of design.
Research Synthesis
Transforming Challenges into Creative Opportunities
POV
POV
I’d like to explore efficient and productive options to create and provide public provider bios and introductions in order to help patients in their research, and to narrow down and feel comfortable with providers who fit what they are looking for in order to streamline and simplify the search process.
How Might We
organize and filter services and calendars to make scheduling appointments as easy and convenient as possible based on individuals’ diverse preferences and needs?
I’d like to create a platform that is beautiful and easy to use in order to make connecting and engaging with holistic healthcare providers and patients as simple as possible because it’s often overwhelming, confusing, and challenging to engage on unattractive and/or difficult-to-interact-with platforms.
How Might We
make pricing and payment options as transparent as possible, allowing patients to find and connect with providers they can afford?
POV
POV
I’d like to examine methods to specify and clarify specific treatment options and prices in order to help patients identify what is available and what they are able to access in order to minimize excess back-and-forth communication and save time in patient’s and provider’s already busy schedules.
How Might We
offer public provider information and bios to simplify patients’ experience finding and connecting with a provider before direct communication?
After learning a tremendous amount from competitor analysis and user interviews, it was clear that a product like Aphoria doesn’t yet exist, providing a rare opportunity to really build out and customize creative solutions to a hole in the market. By focusing on ease, care, and convenience for patients and providers alike, Aphoria could focus on comprehensive holistic healthcare services.
Feature Roadmap
Defining Priorities and Roadmapping User Focused Solutions
Nice to Haves (Batched Release)
Refill medication/tinctures
Provider publishable articles/blog
Featured providers
Provider intro videos
DM/Inbox
Must Haves (MVP)
Personal account portal
Provider Bios
Learn About Offered Practices
Filterable scheduling/calendar
Insurance Payment Portal
Can Come Later (Elevated Features)
Treatment finder quiz
Community calendars
History of holistic treatments
Merchandise
International providers
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Sitemap
Developing Intuitive Navigation for Personalized Healthcare Experiences
Due to the exploratory nature of the Aphoria website, the information architecture involved meticulous planning to encourage browsing while incorporating elements for users who are both logged in and logged out of their accounts. Navigation was thoughtfully designed to accommodate a variety of users, while encouraging site exploration.
Main
Logged In
Task Flows
Guiding Users Toward Success and Engagement
Each flow is carefully crafted to ensure smooth navigation and meet distinct user needs. Maintaining ease of use and successful completion remain at the forefront of development. These journeys create a foundation of the site, and encourage users to explore and engage with Aphoria as a whole.
Patient Signing Up
Rescheduling Appointment by Time
Low and Mid Fidelity Wireframes
Ideating and Early Stages of Design
In figuring out the basic layout, it was extremely important to prioritize the variety and personalization of users’ healthcare journeys. This necessity required wireframes that focused on simple navigation and robust filtering, while maintaining easy and intuitive flows.
Landing
Provider Profile
Landing cont…
Find a Provider
Moodboarding
Design Influence and Inspiration
Based on the overwhelming user feedback about beautiful, aesthetically pleasing UI, pulling inspiration from around the web made a big impact on decision making. Looking at other sites in similar industries lead to certain decisions such as serif headlines, and a jade and mint color scheme.
Visual Design
Brand Identity and Visual Language
Extensive experimentation and consideration was given to the visual design of the website. Because this was a vital point of concern for many users, it was important to translate elements of beauty and tranquility into an elevated visual language.
Home Page
Finalized Designs for Web
The newly designed homepage offers clean, tranquil, inviting UI while also inviting visitors to learn about the services and mission of Aphoria. Incorporating education, customization, and research, users are welcomed into the Aphoria community, catering to their holistic health journey.
Find a Provider
Personalized Results
Due to the variety of services, providers, locations, conditions, and practices, it is important to offer a comprehensive and robust filtering choices. The user interviews indicated that because the search criteria was so individualized, Aphoria prioritizes putting the filter criteria in the user’s control.
Provider Profile
Finding the Right Doctor for YOU
In addition to patient reviews, users said that provider profiles were very important to them in finding and choosing a provider. A challenge presented was finding a way to incorporate a wide amount of information while maintaining clean, clear UI.
By using sectioning and clear labels, providers are able to customize their pages to provide the topics most important to patients including location, specialties, and payment types accepted.
Booking Appointments
Clear, Easy, Customizable
Due to the variety of topis and services offered, Aphoria offers providers customizable cards so patients can book appointments as easily as possible. Patients can book based on either services offered or time available.
Mobile Adaptation
Responsive Design Across Multiple Devices
Each page was designed to adapt smoothly to different screen sizes, ensuring an easy and adaptive search and booking experience across a range of devices.
Usability Testing
Overwhelmingly Positive
After testing user flows, the feedback received was overwhelmingly positive, with no significant changes needed. The users tested indicated that they found Aphoria to be visually beautiful, very straightfoward, and enjoyable to use.
Reflection
Looking Back and Moving Forward
Key Takeaways
There is massive room for growth in the holistic healthcare field, underscoring the need to fill the gaps in market discrepancies and ease of user experience. This project underscored how exciting I find UX/UI design and taught me how much I love focusing on research, particularly user interviews and visual design inspiration. It was extremely rewarding to see the positive impact successful design has on the overall well-being of our communities.
Principal Learnings
There were a number of big lessons learned working on this project, the two most influential for me being the indispensability of user interviews, and allowing the data to modify my hypotheses. Based on personal experience and basic design principles, I had broad brushstroke ideas for Aphoria’s foundation, but listening to users’ experiences, needs, frustrations, and wants were the driving force behind every step.
The data acquired from the interviews also surprised me and differed from some of my hypotheses going into the project, particularly how patients’ had historically found their providers through their insurance instead of by word-of-mouth. By prioritizing user empathy, I was able to challenge my own preconceptions and design a product that can both satisfy user needs and drive business success.
Next Steps
If there were no major time or budget deadlines, there are a number of areas that would be really fun and necessary to build out. The major themes to expand would be patients’ personal account profiles from patient POV and provider POV, herbal medication (re)order, and ensuring that Aphoria is HIPPAA compliant.