Empowering the Medically Underserved with Accessible Healthcare Solutions
Designing a Digital Pathway for Low-Income Individuals to Access Free and Affordable Medical Care
MedTreatment - Mobile App & Responsive Web Design
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Project Overview
Project Overview
The Product
"MedTreatment" app and responsive website aimed at helping people with no income, find possible ways to access medical treatment. The primary focus is to enhance the user experience by making it simple to locate health centers that offer medical treatment. It also aims to address the challenges users face for financial aid and prescription assistance for their healthcare needs.
The Problem
It is difficult for people who are unemployed, uninsured, or have lost their jobs and job-based coverage, to afford the necessary healthcare. These individuals are unaware of clinics, hospitals, or safety-net institutions that offer heavily subsidized or free medical services, financial assistance, and prescription help to those who are medically indigent.
The Goal
The goal is to design an app and responsive website that provides information about clinics, hospitals, and safety net institutions where people with no income can get free or affordable medical treatments, financial aid, and available prescription assistance programs.
Project Duration
July 2023 - August 2023
My Role
UX Designer
Tools
Figma
Adobe XD
Google Suites
Responsibilities
Conducting research
Paper and digital wireframing
Low and high-fidelity prototyping
Conducting usability studies
Accounting for accessibility
Iterating on designs
Determining information architecture and responsive design.
Final Design
Let's review the final design before moving forward with the next steps. The final design of the MedTreatment app and responsive website was optimized for mobile, tablet, and desktop, ensuring an intuitive user experience across different screen sizes, and making it easier for users to locate health centers and access financial aid and prescription assistance.
Understanding the Users
Understanding the Users
User Research - Summary
I conducted secondary research to understand the users I am designing for and their needs. Through research, I identified one of the primary user groups as individuals who are unemployed and uninsured. These individuals face challenges in finding adequate healthcare and are often unaware of subsidized and free medical services. Due to concerns about affordability, many people avoid seeking medical care when they need it the most. The research findings revealed that users need access to an easy-to-use tool to help them locate healthcare centers and obtain information about affordable medical care, financial aid, and programs that can help reduce prescription costs.
Persona 1 - Andrew Miller
Problem Statement
Andrew Miller is an accountant with no job and health coverage who needs information about medical treatment and affordable health care because he is unaware of how to plan hospital visits for his family and get health care.
Persona 2 - Kate Smith
Problem Statement
Kate Smith is a homemaker who needs to know about clinics that provide affordable medical treatment because she wants medical treatment, frequent tests, and imaging for her chronic bronchitis disease.
Competitive Audit
An audit of a few competitors’ products provided direction on gaps and opportunities to address with the “MedTreatment” app.
Click to view the full Competitive Audit
Ideation
I did a quick ideation exercise and generated ideas to address gaps identified in the competitive audit. My focus was to provide information about different ways to get medical care.
Starting the Design
Starting the Design
Digital Wireframe
After ideating and drafting some paper wireframes, I created the initial designs for the “MedTreatment” app. These designs focused on delivering personalized guidance to users to find clinics and financial aids for medical treatments and prescriptions.
Low-Fidelity Prototype
To prepare for usability testing, I created a low-fidelity prototype that connected the user flow of finding information about clinics for medical treatment, financial aid, and prescription assistance for the same.
View "MedTreatment" Low Fidelity Prototype
Usability Study
I conducted an unmoderated usability study to gather feedback about my work directly from the target users. I came up with a research plan to assess how easy it is for the users to complete core tasks in design.
Click to view the Research Plan for the "MedTreatment" usability study.
Click to view Usability Study Note Taking
The following are the usability study findings
Users want contact information of the clinics so that they can contact them before planning the visit.
Users want an option to share conversations about medical treatment queries.
People want information about different affordable health insurance programs to learn about the eligibility for health coverage.
Refining the Design
Refining the Design
Mockups
Based on the insights from the usability studies, I applied design changes like providing the contact information of the clinics that will be listed along with the address and website under the “Search Results” page.
Before Usability Study
After Usability Study
Additional design changes are made by adding the “Other Options” section with information about health coverage.
Before Usability Study
After Usability Study
High-Fidelity Prototype
The final high-fidelity prototype presented cleaner user flows for finding information about different available options to get affordable medical treatment. It also highlights links to various resources and organizations that render help for the needy.
View "MedTreatment "app High Fidelity Prototype
Responsive Design
Responsive Design
Information Architecture
With the app designs completed, I started to work on designing the responsive website. I used the “MedTreatment” sitemap to guide the organizational structure of each screen’s design to ensure a cohesive and consistent experience across devices.
Responsive Designs
The designs for screen size variation included mobile, tablet, and desktop. I optimized the designs to fit the specific user needs of each device and screen size.
Clickable Prototype
Click around the app below
Accessibility Consideration
Included colors that provide maximum color contrast including the content and the background so that the texts and links are clear and accessible.
Multiple language option is available where people can switch between languages to easily access the app.
The initial focus of the home screen on personalized recommendations helps define the primary task or action for the users.
Going Forward
Takeaways
Impact:
Target users were happy with information about the different ways to get medical treatment, financial aid for treatments, and prescriptions. Users felt easy to find clinics and useful to understand various possibilities to get healthcare.
What I learned:
I learned that even though the problem I was trying to solve was a big one, diligently going through each step of the design process and aligning with specific user needs helped me come up with solutions that were both feasible and useful.
Next Steps
Conduct research on how successful the app is in reaching the goal of providing more details about treatments for medically indigent people.
Add more resources about different programs to help users get subsidized and free medical services.
The next steps would be to conduct additional testing to improve accessibility and achieve an equity-focused design.
Get in touch at
LinkedIn | ramsrk2@gmail.com
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