CPR SAVE. App Design
Team: Ilma Bilic, John Falcone, Carly Matz, Mingda Tang
Role: User Experience Researcher & Lead Designer
Project duration: 4 months
Overview
CPR Save LLC is a startup that will crowd-source CPR trained individuals and utilize them to become first responders for victims of cardiac arrest. They will notify the community when someone nearby is in need of CPR, to help save lives. In preliminary research about cardiac arrest, we found that victims have a window of 2–10 minutes of receiving CPR before they start to become brain dead. How can we design for distressed users so they can respond or request help with limited time in emergencies?
To address this, our team did user research where we found that teaching CPR and communicating notifications concisely were key to responding effectively. In our design phase, we implemented different methods of displaying information and navigating through the app. We concluded with validation testing of our previous design with our final design; differing in navigation and feature set.
How can we design for distressed users so they can respond or request help with limited time in emergencies?
Research
Competitive Analysis
Purpose
We conducted a competitive analysis to understand how other companies are dealing with emergency response systems. By looking at the onboarding, notification, and communication components of our competitors we found what was effective and not.
Methodology
We identified our competitors based on the target users and purpose of the application. Then we downloaded the accessible applications and reviewed each for possible strengths, weaknesses, features and differences.
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User Interviews
Purpose
In initial interviews we developed a mental model on how users respond to emergency situations. We needed to understand our users wants, needs and motivations.
Methodology
For recruitment, we looked for anyone who would be willing to receive or perform CPR. Responders with different CPR skill levels and certifications. Within our social network we interviewed doctors, EMT responders and everyday individuals that don’t know anything about CPR.
Findings
“If you are not looking at them going through cardiac arrest, you are too far away” — Trauma surgeon
“Everyone should know how to perform CPR. They should teach it in school or at work.” —Pre-med/Urgent Care Physician
Personas & Journey Map
Coupled with interviews, we organized the target users into personas and user scenarios to solidify user mental models. These were important because they helped us gain user empathy faster and allowed us to design with any accessibility issues in mind.
Design Requirements
From our research and conversations we with our client about the specific needs and functionalities of the product, we planned out a comprehensive list of requirements for the CPR Save app and they are as follows:
Must-haves:
- Emergency request process for potential responders
- Emergency request process for witnesses on the scene.
Should-haves:
- Community — Incentivizes users to stay active in the network.
- Learn — Teach users how to perform CPR step-by-step.
- Settings — Customize availability and notification settings.
Design process
Brainstorm → Low-fidelity Design → Test → Final Design → Validate
Brainstorm
Low-fidelity Design
In our initial design we experimented with incorporating gamification and a bottom bar navigation.
Usability Testing
From usability tests and client feedback we realized:
- Gamifying could have legal and moral restrictions
- Request CPR help wasn´t salient
- The information was too dense to process
Final Design
Given the limited time we had to test and iterate our designs, our final prototype needs work before developing. Collectively as a team we recognize that more testing and designing should be done. However, this prototype is a great start to develop for future users.
Validation
Study Design
The purpose of this validation study is mainly to understand which of our designs best serve the needs of our potential users. They have two primary needs. First, they need to become informed of an emergency situations and have the incentive to act on it in the fastest way possible. The other need involves incentivizing users to stay active in the app and the CPR Save community through our feature set.
We tested the level of usefulness and comprehension of our initial prototype and final designs.
Post-test survey results — level of usefulness from 1 to 10 (10 being highest).
- Design A Mean — 5.2 / 10
- Design B Mean— 7.8 / 10
Usefulness increased by 50% over the course of the design process.
Takeaways
Throughout the design process different requirements came up, which challenged the group to think more creatively in order to create solutions for these new requirements. As the lead designer, I had to rapidly prototype new solutions frequently. This project taught me the value of understanding client and user needs in order to effectively create a usable product. (View full report)