Amazon Aalia: Manage Asthma On-the-go | UX Case Study

Sarah Liu
Sarah Liu
Nov 1 · 8 min read

Brief: Design a brand new mobile app for Amazon that helps people monitor and manage their asthama. It is to be developed first for Andriod mobile and smart watch.

Note: Amazon Aalia (fictional product) is a combination of a wearable patch and mobile app that helps people monitor and manage their asthma. Amazon has been investing more and more in the Healthcare space. They are improving and expanding the Amazon product range with specific healthcare initiatives and quick information for the user, as well as working hard on research and cloud initiatives.

Goal

  • Design a mobile app that helps users monitor and manage their asthma. The app should be in line with app design standards & conventions .
  • Design a brand for Amazon Aalia that is also in line with Amazon family based on research findings.
  • design smartwatch screens to display notification only.

Our Proposal

Design Process

Double Diamond Design Process

My Role and Team

We have a team of three.


RESEARCH

Market & Industry Research

AMAZON Customers are attracted by a convenient and positive experience as well as trust.

AMAZON is obsessed with their customers rather than their competitors. They offer extra services to loyal customers.

Competitive Analysis

Comparative Analysis (wearables)

All of these products are under development. Common feature is to track vitals. We tried to research more about these products, but since all of them are still under development, we couldn’t get more information. They all have their own patent and advantages.

Comparative Analysis (apps)
Comparative Analysis (Apps)

None of these products are linked to a wearable..

Very user unfriendly

<1k downloads from Google Play Store.

Primary Research

  • 77% of asthmatics report having intermittent asthma.
  • 17% of asthmatics report having mild persistent asthma.
  • 7% of asthmatics report having severe persistent asthma.

There were many triggers of asthma but the top four triggers are infection and exercise which we know can be managed if done well and weather and allergies. With all the current forecasting technology we have out there today people can be well prepared for.

So we know that people are not currently tracking their symptoms.

Only 2 respondents has come back saying that they do this.

One with an asthma diary and the other with a mobile app.

18 out of 30 respondents are

BUT we do know that nearly 2/3s of the respondents are monitoring their asthma in some way.

Majority of respondents are doing this via their action plan.

Apart from having an action plan, people are just not doing anything proactive to monitor their asthma.

This response is of particular interest…

Maybe people just aren’t aware that there are other tools out there to help them with their asthma.

Apart from our survey, we conducted further in depth interviews with 10 people.

8 interviewees all suffer from asthma. The goals of our interviews with these 8 interviewees were to gain empathy and insight into their experiences. So what are their frustrations, pain points, and motivations that exist throughout their day-to-day.

Apart from the 8 asthmatics, we also interviewed 2 experts, 1GP and the other an emergency medical doctor.

The goals of our interviews with the experts was to understand the ways through which asthmatics manage their condition and their approach towards self management practices.


SYNTHESIS

Affinity Mapping

Our first step was to make sense of our interviews and we did this by writing all our insights down onto sticky notes and grouping them into categories.

Our first key finding is that we identified two types of asthmatics. The first type is people who’ve had asthma since young all the way into their adulthoods and the second are adults who have recently been diagnosed and are at the beginning of their journey.

Persona

In developing our persona I found that it was important to keep in mind who exactly we were talking about. In maintaining our empathy I wanted to stay away from a photo and name and tried to come up with a mindset instead. Through our research we found most people were managing their asthma but not really in control of their situation . Meet the Coper. A person who after having been diagnosed with asthma has tried to cope with the hand they’ve been dealt. They are MOTIVATED to keep active whenever possible because they feel it helps them. They also try to keep their mood up because it affects them greatly. They DON’T KNOW what specifically triggers their attack, and have trouble remembering what medication they need to take with them. On the whole their STRESS about everything is hurting them. Th

Journey Mapping

Journey Map (Problem)

Problem Statement

Asthmatics need a way to educate themselves on their condition so that they can have control over their asthma.


IDEATION

How Might We statements

HMW empower asthmatics to make the best choices for their overall wellbeing?

  • HMW help asthmatics to be happy and healthy?
  • HMW predict and control the asthma attack?
  • HMW assist asthmatics to feel less anxious?
  • HMW assist them to enhance their overall well-being?
  • HMW give asthmatics an essential tool for enabling their choices?

Crazy 8’s + Design Studio

▸ Vitals

▸ Amazon Services

▸ Medication reminder

▸ Action Plan

▸ Voice Assistance

▸ Online Community

Sitemap

Site map (before)

To understand our user flow we created our site map and ended up with 5 categories.

Daily tracking of factors that would bring value to asthmatics.

Profile.. We know from research that people are using their action plan so it was important to have it our site map. We also know from research that people are not taking their medications as prescribed so it was also important to have this in so users could stay on top of their prescriptions.

Daily forecast as majority of users triggers were caused by weather and allergies.

An online community to not only give support to the sufferers but to also raise awareness.

And lastly education hub to provide a wealth of knowledge to users in the form of more enjoyable methods.

Card sorting

After creating our initial site map, we conducted 5 open card sorts to understand how our users grouped content together.

The biggest takeaway was that people didn’t care for an education hub and instead grouped as they’d expect podcasts and videos to come from actual people with asthma who understood what they were going through rather than from an expert.

The other take away was that medication was grouped with their daily tracking as users felt this was something they needed to be aware of daily.

Lastly, important links and contacts were split down the middle between community and profile, with half of users interpreting important contacts as contacts of partner, parents and general practitioner which we originally haven’t thought of.

Site map (after)

Based on the card sorting the site map is not categorised into

Vitals — all the important data that asthmatics need to be aware of

Daily tracking — all the important factors that asthmatics need to be tracking to manage their asthma well

Profile — important information like their action plan and emergency contacts

Daily forecast — factors that aggravates their symptoms that asthmatics need to be well prepared for

And lastly community — where asthmatics get their support and education from.

Solution User Flow

Solution User Flow

User Journey (Solution)

Solution User Journey

Branding

We created aalia’s logos, buttons according to Amazon’s branding guideline. We use the same color palette as Amazon’s alexa, even the same gradient.

Moodboard


WRAP UP

Next Steps

  • High-fidelity prototype to implement branding.
  • Onboarding testing and further iterations.
  • Sign up flow
  • Copy
  • Look at more user cases.

Personal Learnings

Sarah Liu

Written by

Sarah Liu

UX/UI Designer based in Melbourne. Working to bring human-centred design to businesses.

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