Product design is tricky!
What we did when our product was not as usable as we’d hoped
I joined an early stage health-tech company last year, called Docon Technologies, as an Associate Product Manager. At Docon, we are a team of young engineers building products that make a patient’s experience with her doctor seamless. Software products that upgrade the doctor’s medical practice by creating electronic medical records (EMR) of the patient. Products that the doctors and their patients love.
In this write-up, I am going to share an experience of how it was to design a feature for our users, how we got stuck, and what we did.
First things first - Our primary users are doctors, who use our software while consulting their patients real-time. Conventionally, in India, doctors, clinics, and hospitals function on handwritten prescriptions. A part of our efforts is towards enabling the patients and doctors to store and access all of their medical records digitally.
Our user base is not always tech-savvy but is an excited and a curious bunch: Doctors. Understanding them and their work was the first thing I did after joining.
No product would be successful if you don’t understand your user and the environment he sits in while using your product. All your user stories, flows, and subsequent designs are 110% influenced by that understanding.
If you’re reading this, chances are that you are already familiar with basic jargons such as user stories, use-cases, prototype. If not, here is another write up you can refer to.
So,
While working on a product for a medical speciality (Gynaecology), we encountered some issues with the existing design. Module discovery and the data input experience needed major overhaul. As a result, a big chunk of the app had to be reworked upon.
’Twas a sunny day in September. I had spent the last couple of days penning multiple wireframes. Looking over at all the user flows doodled on a white-board, I stumbled upon a process. More than a process, it was a situation. A situation that would be familiar with most product designers. I call it ‘being stuck in the solutioning circle.’
The use case was to redesign the module for simplicity and minimalism. For a good UX, this must sound like an obvious palate. This one though was a tough one to resolve and we couldn’t risk going into development with a solution that did not hit the nail right on its head, simply because it is expensive. As they say “If need be, spend two more weeks to improve the design rather than to have the development team work on a flawed solution.”
How do you get stuck in the Solutioning circle?
In the image above, the central yellow star is your target, the perfect solution. That is what your doctors will love. They will use it for 6–8 hours everyday, for the 100s of patients they see. It has to be usable. It cannot have redundant taps. It has to be intelligent and self-learning to adapt to a user’s needs. It needs to look beautiful. Most of all, it has to be the simplest possible version of itself, as simple as writing with a pen on a paper.
The blue circular band around the star is the spectrum of ideas and designs that you probably are working on. It contains all sorts of ideas — the rejected ones, not-so-perfect flows and designs with complicated experience.
Since you are redesigning on a white canvas, you tend to form some hypotheses. You prioritise some features, hide some and outline the draft. But you know it still misses something, sometimes it’s just a hunch. You ask yourself a multitude of questions. Will the doctor know where to tap next? Will it look cluttered in the 1024x768 pixelated screen?
For the user, there cannot be a moment of “Oh, why do I have to tap 4 times to get here!” or “Where do I enter these values.” Such a momentary pause makes the user anxious. And you’ll have to eventually change the design based on user feedback.
When you are unable to narrow down to a single draft, realise that you are stuck. The earlier, the better.
How do you break out of the Solutioning circle?
What’s missing?
Ideally, we should be spiraling down into the prime solution. There are many things that could be keeping you stuck in that band. Ask yourself — Is your understanding of the user and their use-case on point? Or are you out of ideas? At such a point, there are only two choices that you have.
- Take the best option you have, smoothen the kinks, discuss with the dev lead and push it for development
- Go meet your user and ask the right questions
I suggest you go with the latter. Conducting a round of user research never goes in vain.
Empathise with the user, ask them quality, well pointed questions, you will find your way inwards.
Make sure you validate all your assumptions during the user interviews — this is critical.
At times, going along with your designer or your dev for this field trip is also a great option. Above is not an absolute trick, but it helps. Always.
There could be a point where you are stuck again and you feel that it could be made better or that it should be simpler, but it is required to be pushed for development. If you’re a product manager/owner, it’s upon you to make the call. Go with the first option at this point. Design with the best solution you have, break it into versions as you would for your sprints. Stick to the agile way, and ship the MVP as soon as possible. The best feedback comes from actual users of your finished product in their real environment.
Bottomline, if you find yourself in the circle, pack your bag, head right to meet your users; ship when you lack time.
After delaying for some time, we took the call and pushed the designs to the dev team. The first version was recently released, going to get some user feedback soon.
Do share your thoughts in the comments section below. I am sure you must have encountered similar situations in your area of work. I would love to learn from your experiences, so do share your story and tell me what you did to reach the star.
Greetings.
PS: Docon Technologies is hiring for multiple positions in Product, Design, Full-stack dev, and iOS teams. If you’re looking to work with a great team, share your CV with the team at hr@docon.co.in
