User Research @ HealthHub
Our simple approach to better understanding our users and gaining valuable insights.
What is “user research”?
It’s getting to know our users by learning about their needs, pain points, and behaviours. There are many methods used in user research, but this post focuses specifically on “individual discussions”. These are informal discussions with specific types of people we are trying to learn more about (ex. Nurses who work in ICU).
Why are we doing user research at HealthHub?
To gain important insights about our users, which allows us to:
- Gain empathy and put ourselves in the shoes of our users whenever we make decisions that impact them.
- Discover new opportunities that we most likely wouldn’t have been able to think of on our own.
- Make informed design choices that make sense to our diverse group of users.
Below is a realistic scenario showing how having individual discussions with just a few users can address the points made above.
HealthHub is looking to expand the health-related applications offered in patient rooms on our IBTs (integrated bedside terminals). We want these to be meaningful and address some of the common pain points patients experience during their stays.
What do we do next?
We take a look at the insights we’ve gathered during individual discussions with people who have had extended stays in a hospital. Some mentioned that they didn’t have a clear understanding of what to expect directly after their procedure. They expressed feelings of confusion and frustration, which greatly affected the rest of their stay.
We’ve identified some major pain points, and are now better equipped to define problems that can be solved.
Now what?
After defining the problem(s), we can now start brainstorming potential solutions. Maybe in some units, we put an app on patient’s IBTs where they can read about what to expect after certain procedures.
Based off of previous discussions we’ve had with clinicians, we discovered that a lot of patients have cognitive and/or mobility issues. These are key points to remember when designing the content and navigational structure of our future app.
Ultimately, one of HealthHub’s main goals is to provide hospitals with products that are meaningful and enhance the lives of the people who use them. Doing user research and sharing the knowledge gained from it is something that helps us achieve this important goal.
Our approach to individual discussions:
- Identifying what type of people we want to learn more about.
- Sending out a short, 1 minute screener survey to find people who would be willing to talk about their experiences, jobs, etc.
- Scheduling a phone or video call.
- Having an informal discussion.
- Recording our findings on a Miro board (virtual whiteboard software available for free).
Throughout this entire process, we keep consent and participant privacy top of mind as these are our guiding principles.
#1: Identifying the group of people we want to learn more about
All it takes at the beginning is to ask a few questions:
- Who haven’t we talked to before?
- Who do we need to learn more about?
- Who are we currently making a lot of assumptions about?
We came to the realization that we didn’t have any direct patient perspectives and experiences documented. The answer was easy in this case — try to get some!
After this initial step, we asked ourselves a few more questions:
- Are we looking to talk to specific types of people? (Ex. We don’t know much about young adults, so let’s try to find 25–35 year olds to talk to).
- How many people do we want to speak to?
Lesson Learned: There’s no need to be overly picky about who to talk to. It’s okay if a few people don’t match your “perfect criteria”. We originally only wanted to speak to patients who stayed at a hospital within the last 2 years, but when we opened it up a little to people who had stayed up to 5 years ago, we actually got some of our greatest insights.
#2: Creating and sending out a screener survey
We create a very short screener survey (takes under a minute to complete) using Microsoft Forms. In the description, we put information regarding the purpose of the discussion and some of the topics we’ll talk about. We use the screener to obtain 2 main types of information:
- A bit of background information on the person.
- Their email address so that we can easily contact them.
The link to the screener is shared 3 main ways: In Slack channels, on social media sites, and through co-workers and loved ones (word of mouth). We found 2 ways to get people to fill out our screener:
- Let them know right away that it will take under a minute to complete.
- Offer an incentive (ex. an Amazon e-gift card) to people who fill out the screener and end up speaking with us.
Lessons Learned: Don’t hesitate to share the screener a few times. The second time I posted the screener on Facebook, one of my friends shared the post and I got several new submissions. Also, it’s really valuable to ask friends and family members if they know anyone who would be interested in speaking about their experience. You don’t need to do this part all alone :)
#3: Scheduling the phone/video call
After taking a look at the screener survey results, we create a spreadsheet listing everyone who we’re interested in talking to. This helps keep track of who we’ve already contacted/spoken to, and who we want to contact in the future.
After this, we send out emails to people who we’d like to have a discussion with. The email content is relatively short, and we provide a link to Calendly (free scheduling software) where the person can schedule a day and time to chat with us. Calendly sends an email invitation out, which includes call details like a link to Google Meet, the name of the interviewer, etc.
Lesson Learned: It’s best to ask for people’s call preferences in the meeting invitation. Calendly allows you to create a series of questions, and the person’s answers are recorded in the invitation. Some things we ask for are their phone number, call preference (phone call vs. video call), and their consent to having another member of the team on the call.
#4: Having the discussion
To start the discussion off, we:
- Introduce ourselves and talking a little bit about HealthHub.
- Provide context as to why we want to talk to the person, and what sort of topics we’ll cover during the discussion.
- Inform them of how the information they provide will be used, and who will be seeing it.
- Let them know that their responses will be completely anonymized.
Note: A lot of this information goes in the screener survey’s description, but we like to bring it up again at the beginning of the call.
What we do during the discussion:
We get extremely valuable insights from people by asking questions in specific ways. Questions phrased like this normally have great results:
- “Describe how…”
- “Walk me through…”
- “What words would you use to…”
These types of questions give people the opportunity to tell a story, rather than just answering a bunch of questions. We’re really trying to build empathy during these discussions, instead of going through it like it’s a rigid interview.
It’s always good to have a second person from the company present in the discussion to help take notes and ask a few questions. Something that we’re working towards is having a different “note taker” each time, so that as many people as possible can get first-hand knowledge of users. These people don’t have to be limited to the design team — get developers, product managers, and anyone else interested involved!
Lessons Learned: Asking the right questions takes a bit of practice. The first time you try this out, it may not go as smoothly as you would have hoped. You might notice that you’re not getting detailed answers, or that after the discussion, you find yourself coming up with follow up questions you probably should have asked. Remember to write these questions down and ask them next time.
Don’t forget that any insights you can collect are valuable, and your discussion/question-phrasing skills can only get better!
#5: Recording our findings
This part is a lot of fun because we type our insights into digital sticky notes (using Miro), and place them under different categories on the board such as: Pains, Gains, and Behaviours.
It gives a nice, colourful visualization of all the information we’ve gathered. It’s also easier to digest this way, and is a really good first step to creating personas. Another plus is that it’s very easy to share with others, and allows more people from the organization to get involved.
Lessons Learned: This doesn’t have to be something that is super structured or perfect. The board will improve and evolve over time. The most important thing to do is just get the information down. Then you can worry about making it look amazing!
Future steps we’d like to take with our user research:
- Getting perspective from minors and their families, and from individuals with identified disabilities.
- Figuring out more ways to share the insights we’ve learned from our discussions with the rest of the organization.
That’s all for now! We’re excited to continue evolving the way that we conduct user research, and look forward to getting more people at HealthHub involved.
