Dr. Lalpathlabs — UI/UX Case Study

8 min readSep 21, 2021

What is Dr. Lalpathlab?

Dr. Lal PathLabs is one of the largest lab testing companies in India. Their focus is on providing quality diagnostic healthcare services to patients with over 3,368 diagnostic and related healthcare tests and services.

It emerged and came on the android and ios mobile platforms back in 2014, with headquarters centered in New Delhi. Now, it serves around 70,000 patients a day through its mobile platforms.

By delivering the most accurate reports over the years, Dr. Lal PathLabs has earned the reputation of being among India’s most trustworthy and reliable pathology labs.

Why this Re-Design?

As I was suffering from illness, I thought of searching for a app that provides the home collection test for covid-19.

While booking the tests, I noticed certain things that were not proper.

The app has no information related to covid-19 tests on the initial home page, and the user interface was quite confusing. There is no option for notifications to check the status of test orders and reports. Also, I faced difficulty with figuring out whether the test has a walk-in/home pickup collection/ both services available or not. There is not proper categorization of health packages.

After this exploration, it caused me to look into it and see if the people who use it also face the same problem.

Goals and Inspiration

My goals for the design

To improve the visual hierarchy, usability and make it simple for the users.
To provide a seamlessly fast and smooth experience for the users.
To give a seamlessly fast, smooth, and intuitive user interface.
To create the redesign of the app.
To improve the overall user experience of the application.
To deliver a personalized experience and intuitive user interface.

Personal Goals

To be responsible for various roles such as UI Designer, UX Designer, and UX Researcher that are involved in the process,
To challenge some design decisions and address their solutions, to enhance and magnify my learning experience.

App Analysis

While using the app for booking some tests, I came through some severe flaws. There was no visual hierarchy, and the app was quite confusing, with no option available for home collection/walk-in test. I also went to the App store to check the reviews and understand what problems other users face to get a bigger picture of what users are trying to find.

I decided to do an in-depth analysis of the app and, I found some pain points that a large number of users are facing. Here’s the list

User Research

I decided to start my user research by taking user inputs to make decisions accordingly before getting into the prototype and design phase.

I interviewed users who fall in the age group between 20–25 and asked them to use the app and discuss their difficulties.

I also decided to interview people between the age of 35–45 to get their views about the app.

Some key insights from the interview

Most users have complaints regarding no information related to covid-19 tests, uncategorized cumbersome UI, no visual hierarchy, and on the initial homepage.
People complain that there is no option to check notifications while booking the test to check the status of the test and reports. They only get SMS messages.
They also complain that the test’s availability of walk-in/home collection service should be made visible.
Users complain about poor chat service and chat supports with only pre-defined options, which are not helpful.
Users are unable to find orders placed, and there is no option to cancel the test.
Users have a complaint that there is no option to edit the profile of self/family members.
Issues regarding standard tab for all health packages / No option to choose different categories for health packages.

Defining the problem

After going through all the pain points through user research, I have listed down the main pain points most people had issues with.

Pain Points common to most of the users

Pain Point — 1 : No information related to covid-19 tests on home screen

Users have a complaint that there is no information related to the Covid-19 test on the initial homepage. They also had issues regarding the multiple colors schemes and cluttered UI used on the home screen.

Pain Point 2 — The problem of visibility of the tests, whether its available for Home collection at the moment or not

There were various reviews of users complaining that there is no information regarding home collection/ walk-in service available while going through the test, making it confusing for the user. They’ve no idea whether they’re booking the test for a home collection test or have to visit the lab.

Users also complained that they accept test bookings but cancel at the end moment, which set you back days. They get a call from the lab after the payment and all other steps, informing them that this test is not available for home collection, making things harder for users as there can be some emergency.

Pain Point 3 — No categorization of health packages

Users complain that there is no category to choose from different health packages. It gets hard to browse.

There is no proper organization of tests. They cannot access the other category packages by clicking on some standard category tabs defined on the homepage.

Most users complaint that they had to keep scrolling horizontally to see different recommended tests, which makes it hard to discover.

Pain Point 4 — No option for notifications

Users expressed that there is no option for notification to check the status of test bookings and reports and receive only an SMS message, making the user experience worse. It also creates confusion for the users as they might think that the app is not working correctly.

Competitive Analysis

I reviewed other apps to understand their strategy and success in the market. I listed all the essential points and features to identify the competitors and outline their strengths and weaknesses in a structured tabular format.

Paper Prototyping

I went through all the pain points, feedback from users, UI of the app and website, and its competitors and came out with some potential ideas that gave me a vision of what was important to users and kept in mind the business objective.

I started sketching all the layouts possible and chose the one that worked the best before working on the high-fidelity designs.

UX Suggestions and The Redesign

1. Home Screen

Proposed Solution:

Placed the “current location” only instead of “hi, username” as it is more important for the user to don’t get confused about their location while booking the test.

Providing information related to the Covid-19 test was my priority while starting this redesign. Therefore, I added the “Covid-19 test” and “Covid-19 vaccination” buttons to make them easily accessible for the users.

Added “notification bell” on the top right and replaced the position of the “cart” on the top navbar with “notification,” as the cart at the top is tough to access and is used more as compared to a notification, so I placed the cart in the navigation bar.

Improved the banner image with illustrations and more easily readable texts.

Improved the “Book Test” and “View Reports” buttons. I highlighted the button “Book test” because the purpose of the app is to book tests. Added a popup notification on the view report to let the user know if there is any recent report.

Added a horizontal scroll for the “recommended test” with just 3–4 tests, and can use “see all” to view all tests.

Divided the health packages into three categories using a tab bar, namely, Men, Women, Featured. It enabled me to organize content into a flexible layout and can be easily accessed.

2. Search Screen

3. Test Details Screen

Proposed Solution:

Added a proper visual hierarchy to give the user the required information.

Added “current location” on top to make it easy for the user to keep a check on the location they’ve selected while booking the test.

Added “Home pickup only,” “Walk-in Only,” or “Home pickup and walk-in” section to help the user know before booking any test about the options available and take decision based on that. If the test is open for walk-in, the nearby test center will be visible to choose other test centers. Most users expressed that they get confused whether the test they’re looking for is for walk-in or home collection.

Also, I improved the exact report delivery time to give an estimated time for the report and E-reports. The next slot tomorrow gives precise info about the available slots on the same page itself, making it easy for the users.

Renamed the “Doctor Info” as “Technical Info” because it shows the details related to test and not doctors, which can confuse the user. I placed the link for “technical info” above ADD button to minimize the equal importance as not all users want to see the “technical info.” To reduce unnecessary friction, it will appear as a modal to make it simple and easy for the user.

4. Added new screen for “Notification”