How we designed our new appointment booking experience
Simpler, more intuitive and scalable.
Planning a big redesign of an app liked ours, without affecting general development or our legacy, requires a strong considering of priorities. We knew that working in phases would not be easy, but it was the only way to get there.
The quick growth of babylon meant we had to cover a greater number of users and integrate new features, thus demanding a versatile application that is prepared for what is coming. We were aware that the future had arrived, and we needed to evolve to create the foundations of a product in constant development.
“The new appointment experience fitting with the new babylon generation, improving bugs of the past and it’s prepared for the future features”
babylon was born with a clear idea — to democratise health — and that meant creating a simple product with a clear purpose, where all users are able to solve their medical problems or worries in a simple, fast and secure way.
Solving issues from the past
The good part about designing something that already exists and on which you have data is that you can see easily what works and what doesn’t, but the worst part is the restrictions that this entails to freedom, since trying new things is a major risk.
The first thing was to see what we had, analyse the data, understand it, find out the things that are working properly, what problems we had, how we can solve them and the right way to evolve the product.
The key was to reduce the steps and friction to a minimum without affecting the UX, to make each section even clearer to eliminate mistakes, and to look for the way we never get blocked every time we wanted to introduce something new.
Bringing the family closer
Another important part on which we focused, was to make it obvious who the appointment is for and create an easy way to select and add family members at any time.
Supporting the family is an ever-increasing priority for babylon.. More and more users expand their experience to their family, trusting the health of all them in us. Therefore, we made it obvious and simple how the different members of the family access to the consultations.
Scalable and customisable
Because of babylon’s rapid growth, the only way to develop a product well is through the idea of product design.
We had to think of a system of blocks or interchangeable pieces that would give us the freedom to create adaptable templates to each situation and to each user. It should be noted that babylon must meet the health needs of very different groups of users.
“…it’s about designing with the big picture in mind — it’s about designing the core of the system”- Joe Toscano.
The main idea was to reduce the task to the minimum expression, to the most basic, the common, and from there start to build everything else.
Reducing steps
When you need medical help you need it as soon as possible, you don’t want to get lost in precious UI’s or endless forms.
What makes babylon unique is that it breaks traditional schemes making health accessible in minutes wherever you are. Therefore, with that in mind, we set our goals higher and aim to reduce the process without affecting efficiency. The user should be able to reserve her appointment in the simplest way without making mistakes.
We worked to integrate the experience into a single screen, where the user was able to review everything together, including time slots as an essential part of the appointment and thus eliminating unnecessary screens.
Don’t miss a call
Now that the booking is done, the next most important interaction is the call with the doctor. And here is where we also made major improvements. This part must be clear, frictionless and natural, received by the user as if they were getting a call from a friend or partner. This eliminates its cold character so that the user will feel calmed down and prepared for the consultation. All this in a much more obvious and integrated environment with the rest of your calls so that it does not lead to confusion or losing a call.
How do we know we designed the right experience?
To understand how users interact with our experience we built a series of prototypes that we tested with real users. These usabilities studies help us spot pain points early on in the journey before development.
Whatusersdo is a remote user testing platform that allows us test our prototypes on a variety of users. Here are some of the quotes from the testing:
“Looks really professional which is what you expect for an app for doctors”
“Very Easy. Not difficult at all. Straight forward”
“ Quite good you can see the selection of specialist”
Analysis focused on key metrics around satisfaction, ease of use, and time on task.
This is just the start
This is just the beginning of a new complete health experience. With this work, we set up the basics to build on top all the amazing features we have prepared as well as the upcoming ones.
Visit babylon Design Team website.
