NYU Langone Design Research-Week 2 progress
Team members: Blessing, Ruobing, and Yixun
During week 1 in-class discussions
One of the first things my group did was to set a to-do list for each week -individual assignments for each week and an agenda for Monday meetings and in-class discussions. Last week in class, we shared our research findings and possible solutions that we came up with and discussed what pain point we could solve as a team. It was not as difficult to narrow down problems we want to solve through this project because many of the problems and solutions we shared were similar or overlapping; there are many problems transgender or nonbinary people face when seeking healthcare but they come down to the lack of knowledge or safe-space by the healthcare providers and the fear of discrimination that results in transgender people to avoid seeking healthcare. The solutions we shared varied from creating a better waiting room experience, improving the intake form, to creating an app, but all of us shared that NYU Langone’s current Transgender Health website is not enough and that there is a lot of potentials for improvements to create a more welcoming and supportive space for transgender patients. The problem statement presented by our sponsor was about improving gender equity for patients at NYU Langone, so based on the solutions we all shared, we decided to work on NYU Langone’s Transgender Health webpage instead of working on creating something more general.
This is the “How might we…” statement we came up with:
HOW MIGHT WE… present additional information about transgender health that allows providers to be more open, personable, trustworthy to the patients
SO THAT… the patients feel comfortable and confident to seek medical services with respect and without fear of abuse/discrimination
Week 2 Homework
With the idea we decided on in class, we moved on to coming up with more detailed solutions and creating rough sketches individually. These are the ideas and sketches I came up with:
My team discussed in class that the Transgender Health page is not curated specifically for transgender patients when there is recent data that shows that 62 percent of transgender people said they worried about being judged because of their sexual orientation or gender identity when seeking health care, based on this research. One of the first things people do when seeking everyday healthcare nowadays is to search the hospitals online, so making the transgender health website more inclusive and advocating NYU Langone’s effort in creating an inclusive and supportive environment is essential for transgender people to seek medical care at NYU Langone more comfortably. Currently, on their page, there is not enough information on each doctor. Some doctors state their effort for creating a supporting office environment on their profile page but some don’t have any information, and this inconsistency is making it hard for patients to search for the right doctor for them. So I started off by adding pronouns next to each doctor’s name and creating a badge system where doctors do training and learn about rules and guidelines they need to follow to create a safe space for transgender patients. I also thought it would be a good idea to make the doctor’s profile page more friendly and welcoming, by adding personalized videos where each doctor explains their specialty, strength, and their effort in making their practice more inclusive, supportive, and positive for transgender and nonbinary patients. In addition, adding patients’ experiences section on doctor’s profile and sharing positive feedback from transgender patients would decrease the fear of discrimination by potential patients. Also, last week, my team discussed creating a buddy program where transgender patients can support each other through their experience at NYU Langone, so I thought it would be a good idea to connect those patient feedbacks on the doctor’s page to the buddy program where new or potential patients can ask questions to their buddies.
During Monday Meeting
My team met up virtually on Monday to share our sketches and ideas and to talk about the next steps. It was interesting how we all shared similar ideas on making the website feel more personal and welcoming, but there were some new ideas on how the website could be improved to make it easier to navigate in general. We all came up with details that could be added to every four pages and decided to create a mid-fidelity prototype of the webpages by next week so that we can start researching. We assigned who is going to create the prototypes of each of the pages at Transgender Health: Homepage, Doctor’s page, Our care team page, and Resources page. We decided that I will be working on Doctor’s page since the ideas I shared were mostly on the doctor’s page.
For next week
My team will create a mid-fidelity prototype of each assigned page, and share it during the Monday meeting, to move on to the qualitative research and iteration.
Personal Learning Outcome
This week, I really felt the tightness of this project timeline but it was a great idea to put down the to-do list for each week before starting this project, so that we could present a finished product at the end of the semester. My team has been following this timeline so far and everyone is committing to the project and sharing ideas, that it has not been a struggle to make decisions as a team. However, I have a feeling that my team is deciding everything solely based on assumptions so far. These assumptions are backed by academic data and researches but I believe that this insecurity I feel is because the only way I have designed a product in the past was by collecting qualitative data. I previously worked as a qualitative UX researcher so I tend to focus and spend a lot of time on qualitative research when designing. I am guessing that if we had more time and resources, we could have done some in-depth interviews, but I am still figuring out and adjusting to this new way of designing. It is challenging to decide what to prioritize and what to spend less time on when we have a tight timeline but I am looking forward to hearing what other team has been working on and getting some advice and insights from other teams!
