WellFinder: Understanding Patient Motivations
A Designlab project
This project was completed through Designlab’s UX Academy. I led this project solo end-to-end and took on the roles of researcher, designer, and tester. The estimated project length was ~20 hours a week for ~6 months.
The Opportunity 🌟
If we can understand what motivates a patient to care for their whole health, we can make personalized lifestyle recommendations to the patient, resulting in an enhanced, healthy life.
- Motivations: the inner motivations of a patient; what enables a long-lasting behavior change for a specific person
- Whole health: mind, body, and soul; health beyond just the physical; “whole health” encompasses physical, mental, and spiritual health
- Personalized lifestyle recommendations: providing suggested actions and habits that correlate to a patient’s inner motivations
- Enhanced, healthy life: day-to-day routines and habits that prevent future health (body, mind, and soul) escalations and complications; patients live their life to the fullest, as defined by themselves
The Problem 🧐
The traditional healthcare model in the United States starts with a pain point and ends with a temporary surface solution.
The future of healthcare starts from a holistic view of the patient and ends with healthy lifestyle habits that prevent future health episodes.
Understanding what motivates a patient to take care of their health day-to-day will allow us to make personalized lifestyle recommendations to the patient, ultimately resulting in a healthier patient:
- Healthier patients reduce the cost of care
- Healthier patients require less time with physicians, thus positively impacting physician burnout
There is a gap in the market for a solution that helps patients find lifestyle habits, tools, and processes that work best for them and help them live healthier lives.
How might we…
- Help people find healthy activities that suit their preferences and interests (finances, variety, sustainability, diversity)?
- Provide healthy lifestyle education and recommendations that people can trust and take immediate action on?
- Recommend healthy lifestyle habits/activities that don’t interfere with people’s other day-to-day priorities?
The Who 👫
During five user interviews, ~twelve primary questions were asked. This led to 360+ insights gained. Synthesizing these insights led to the creation of 3 primary personas.
Primary personas
The Research 🔍
Third-party research
I began with exploring third-party research to validate my problem statement.
Through my research, I found there currently exist solutions that help patients find doctors best suited for that particular patient (e.g., ZocDoc). As we look beyond pairing patients with doctors and extend our scope to personalized healthcare recommendations, there is a lack of solutions. Certain companies do target specific lifestyle aspects — for example, Noom helps users consume food in the way that works for that particular user.
However, the healthcare industry lacks a solution that provides patients with overall personalized lifestyle recommendations to better their overall health.
Research has been conducted that dives into patient motivations. There are even articles making lifestyle recommendations for readers based on results of certain personality quizzes (e.g., Enneagram, Myers-Briggs). However, combining scientific research with personalized healthcare recommendations related to lifestyle is nearly non-existent. This is despite the fact that research has shown the importance of personalized lifestyle medicine and why it has a large role in the future of healthcare.
Understanding what motivates a patient to take care of their health day-to-day will allow us to make personalized lifestyle recommendations to that patient, ultimately resulting in a healthier patient. Healthier patients reduce the total cost of care. Healthier patients require less time with physicians, thus positively impacting physician burnout.
User interviews
Five in-person and virtual user interviews were conducted. Each of the interviews explored the interviewee’s current-state health and desired future-state health.
We explored topics with the interviewees such as:
- How they define “healthy” and what “healthy” means to them
- Their current health goals and lifestyle habits
- What helps them stay healthy and meet their health goals [accelerators]
- What detracts and holds them back from being healthy and achieving their health goals [pain points]
- What motivates them to be healthy and why
- How they discovered the current tools, processes, and resources they use to be healthy
- The health resources they trust and why
- Their ideal future state — if they had a magic wand, how would they solution for their pain points
User interview themes
After synthesizing the insights gained from the five user interviews, several themes arose:
The motivations people have to stay healthy were interesting to me. I was expecting most interviewees to say they stay healthy for their friends, family, and partners and was surprised to see that people stay healthy in order to be happy and feel good in their bodies. They are stay healthy to prevent future medical complications and diseases.
I gained quite a bit of insight into what’s important for people when they do health research and explore ways to stay active and healthy. People desire reputable sources backed by data — on the other hand, they also trust social media influencers and leverage social media posts when researching. Perhaps there is a way to distill reputable research down into a digestible format… a format people are familiar with that is based on social media formats…
There are several “things” that get in the way of people maintaining their healthy routines. Some of the most prominent ones are lack of time. People don’t have enough time in the day to attend to everything they need to PLUS workout/ stay active/ complete their health routines.
I further summarized the interview synthesis and themes into how might we statements:
- How might we recommend healthy lifestyle habits/activities that don’t interfere with people’s other priorities?
- How might we help people find healthy activities that suit their preferences and interests (finances, variety, sustainability, diversity)?
- How might we provide healthy lifestyle education and recommendations that people can trust and take immediate action on?
Storyboards
Leveraging insights from the user interviews and ethnographic research, two storyboards were created to show how a user might experience a solution that makes personalized health lifestyle recommendations.
- Storyboard 1: Annie discovers the solution via a Google search; she signs up and gets matched with a few healthy lifestyle recommendations; she finds the habits that work best for her
- Storyboard 2: Theo discovers the solution via an Instagram ad; he signs up, takes a quiz, and purchases a healthy lifestyle subscription box that meets his needs
Feature roadmap
A feature roadmap was created to prioritize the solution’s features based on (from highest to lowest priority): must have, nice to have, surprising and delightful, and can come later.
- Must have features: account creation, calendar integration, Tinder-esque swipe, personality quiz, matches
- Nice to have features: business profiles, reviews, contact us
Site structure
A site structure was developed based on hybrid, independent card sorting exercises with four users. Fifty (50) cards were created along with six pre-determined categories.
Key takeaways:
- Users interpreted terminology differently
- Users gravitated towards the “Profile” category more than other categories; it surprised users how many cards were placed under this category
- Users interpreted certain cards differently (e.g., Address, Phone Number… Whose address? Whose phone number?)
- Users did not know where to place the “Number of users” card
User flows
User flows were created to visualize how a user might experience certain features of the solution. Each flow contains happy path(s), alternative path(s), and error path(s).
User flows created:
- Creating an account
- Matching with recommendations
- Scheduling an activity
Task flows
Task flows were created to visualize and map out the steps a user would take to accomplish a specific task within the solution. The task flows created were based on the previously designed user flows.
Task flows created:
- Log in
- Sign up + choose subscription
- Get matched
- Schedule physical activity/match
The Design 📱
Low-fidelity wireframes
Low fidelity wireframes were sketched on paper to visualize two flows which were determined based on the previously designed user flows and task flows.
Creating an account:
Matching + recommendations:
Mid-fidelity wireframes
Mid-fidelity wireframes were created in Figma and were based on the previously designed low-fidelity wireframes.
Mid-fidelity wireframes designed:
- Creating an account (mobile)
- Matching with recommendations (mobile)
- Creating an account (desktop)
High-fidelity wireframes
High-fidelity wireframes were created based on the mid-fidelity wireframes. One flow was prioritized to elevate to high-fidelity based on user, mentor, and colleague feedback on the low- and mid-fidelity wireframes.
Creating an account (mobile):
After yet another round of research to try to find a different workout routine that he might like, Frank stumbles upon an add for a new app, WellFinder. He has never seen this app before, and it has great reviews, so, intrigued, he downloads and opens the WellFinder app.
He is greeted with a few standard informational and account creation screens. He likes that the app focused on holistic health and hopes it will personalize his experience, as he would prioritize physical health over mental and spiritual health; although he wouldn’t be against exploring his mental and spiritual health.
Next, Frank inputs his current location. Since he uses a lot of technology and apps in his day-to-day routine, allowing an application to access his location isn’t a problem. He likes that WellFinder will be able to recommend local spots for him to check out.
Frank is curious about the quiz. The questions make him think a bit deeper about his health and health goals.
“I love that WellFinder is trying to understand the real me and not make assumptions about my health and health goals,” Frank thinks.
As Frank finished the quiz, he sees he has the option to purchase products personalized to him. Since Frank is always open to exploring new health products to help him reach his goals, he decides to purchase a box.
“Neat! I’ve never been sent personalized health products before,” Frank thinks.
The Branding ✍️
Branding for WellFinder started with exploring images related to health and wellness via a mood board.
After gaining inspiration from images on Pinterest, I prioritized words I ideated on — words that came to mind when I thought of my application and its Why: helping people find healthy lifestyle habits that work for them.
Prioritized brand words:
- Scientific
- Persona
- Motivating
- Connection
- Holistic
Based on this brand exploration and prioritization, I ideated on potential names for the application and finally landed on “WellFinder.”
WellFinder — discover lifestyle habits that promote your personal wellness
The Feedback 🎙
User tests
Five user tests were conducted for the creating an account flow. Testing this flow provided insight into the desirability of the WellFinder solution as well as understanding of the main features of the solution.
Features tested:
- Inputting/providing login information
- Inputting/providing location
- Taking the quiz
- Purchasing a subscription box
Final design
Based on the insights gained from the five user tests, design iterations were prioritized and executed, resulting in a final design of the WellFinder solution — specifically, the creating an account flow.
Iterations made:
- Created transparency when taking the quiz
- Added icons for body, mind, and soul
- Added iOS location pop-ups
- Updated required login information
- Updated the description pages
- Added password criteria
My Reflection 💭
Highlights
I enjoyed working through this project end-to-end. This was the first time I dove into the design thinking process from start to finish from a designer’s perspective. Previously, I’ve led design thinking engagements but more so from a business strategist’s point-of-view.
Throughout this process, I learned that design and creating an experience for end users is never truly “done.” There are always tweaks to make and ways to evolve and improve the experience. The key is knowing when you’ve reached success, as defined by what brings your end users the most value. Hence, the importance of completing upfront (and continuous) research to deeply understand whom you are solving for.
Next time
If I were to continue working on this product, I would continue testing with users and iterating on the high-fidelity wireframes and prototype. I would also put on my strategist hat and dive into frameworks such as a Market Requirements Document (MRD),Product Requirements Document (PRD), and Business Requirements Document (BRD). This research would ensure I’m focusing on not just desirability of the product/idea but feasibility and viability as well.
Since this was the first project I completed during my Designlab bootcamp, I can spot several ways I would improve and evolve the current design of the WellFinder app based on the additional learnings and skills I gained as I completed the rest of the bootcamp. It’s encouraging to see the progress I’ve already made as a UI/UX designer in just a few months. I look forward to looking back on my other projects in a year or so to reflect on more of the progress I will make.
