Designing an Adherence App, or Why Taking Your Medicine is Not Always Easy
NOTE: This post details my first journey into the world of UX design while working on my Capstone Project. For experienced developers I imagine most of it is duck soup. You have been warned.
I had chosen to build my capstone project around the general concept of “change” (one of three concepts we were presented), and eventually decided that I wanted to focus on behavior related to prescription medication. Medication is one of the more ubiquitous methods today for changing attitude, mood, and actions, but adherence to a regimen remains a big problem amongst users. The reasons for this are multi-faceted, but I set out with the hypothesis that making the process less frustrating may make adherence more likely.
Initial need-finding made it clear that prescription medication users must navigate a complex eco-system in order to maintain their regimen. Between the psychiatrist, the insurance company, the pharmacy, and sometimes even the medicine manufacturer, breakdowns in the process have many opportunities to occur. My concept for the app was to help organize the users interaction within that complex framework and make the exchanges within it more seamless. I also initially designed the app to have a daily mood tracker that would allow you to log the effects of your medication over time, in keeping with the initial concept of change.
After running a few user tests with two slightly modified paper prototype designs, I knew some revisions and edits needed to be made. For one, my attempt to “gamify” the process in my second design was a dud. It was gimmicky and only added confusion for the user. Secondly, my on-boarding needed work. My “account setup” sequence was overwhelming and would require some additional documentation for someone new to the app to feel comfortable with it. I also found users were confused by the mood tracker. It’s purpose wasn’t clear and didn’t seem to “gel” with the practical emphasis of the apps other features.
My initial wireframe was made with Moqups. I removed the gamification aspects for all but the initial set-up, and went with a plain menu interface. The key features of the app were focused around keeping track of your prescriptions and all necessary medical information, scheduling refill reminders so you never forget to refill your prescription, and the ability to automate pharmacy requests and delivery. I also added a medical team feature to more completely represent the adherence “eco-system” users interact with. With much consternation, I removed the mood tracking feature until I had an opportunity to develop it in a more robust way (this never happened...but still might!)
After a final round of user testing, it became clear that the biggest remaining issues were with the apps look. Users rated the app highly for it’s ease of use, but poorly on visual design. This made it clear that I was ready for the polishing stage. I decided to adopt a loose adherence to the principles of material design for the apps aesthetic. I made this final design in Moqup’s as well, but instead of using their native prototyping tool I exported the screens over to InVision, primarily because it provides animations. This meant resetting the hotspots for all 145 screens and assets, which was a bit of a slog. The redesign process really exposed me to the weirdly fractured landscape of design software, and the importance of determining the right tools early on. My next mission is to master Sketch…I really needed those syncing features for this project.
For this final build, the home screen evolved into a quasi-dashboard that could present dynamic information for the user. Upcoming appointments, directions to pharmacy, and notification of potential shortages would be prominently displayed for “at a glance” functionality. Additionally, the refill reminder schedules were collapsed into a more flexible scroll calendar that allows the user to both see and set all their appointments and refill reminders quickly and easily.
I’m happy with the final prototype I’ve devised for the capstone course, which you can explore here. While the prototype does not include all the features I had initially conceived, I think it does an admirable job of attempting to tackle a real world problem in an intuitive and user-friendly way. Of course, I am far from the first person to conceive of an adherence app, and it would still have a long road ahead of it before it could potentially effect positive change in the world, but in the meantime, I am pleased with the changes it has brought to my UX sensibilities.
