Neuro App
Clients Misky Abshir and Salman Elmi of Noma Capital, in partnership with Twin Cities Health Services, are on a mission to create a culturally-cognizant, digital approach to mental and emotional health.
Overview
We conducted generative research and usability testing in order to create and develop an extension of an existing design concept: community-focused wellness management software.
KEY DELIVERABLES
PROCESS WORK
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MY ROLE
UX Researcher | UX/UI Designer | Participant* Interview & Usability Testing Moderator and Note-Taker
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METHODS
Competitive Analysis | Participant* Interviews | Directed Storytelling | Card Sorting | Rose Thorn Bud | Affinity Mapping | Data Synthesis | Usability Testing | Think-Aloud Protocol | High-Fidelity Interactive Prototyping | Design Systems & Component Libraries | Style Guides | Annotated Wireframes
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TOOLS
Figma | Miro | Otter.ai | Zoom | Google Sheets | Google Docs | Google Forms | Google Slides | Pen & Paper
SUMMARY
Key Points
Problem: Create a culturally-cognizant digital approach to mental and emotional health, with a particular focus on the Twin Cities Somali community
Process: Working as a part of a 5-person UX team, I conducted both research and design activities (competitive analysis, participant interviews, usability testing, high-fidelity interactive prototyping) in order to both understand the needs surrounding and develop solutions for increasing community member access to equitable care
Findings: Opportunities for creating more responsive and individualized care based on cultural, language, accessibility, and cognitive needs of the target population
Solution: A pairing of client-facing and counselor-facing portals, prototyped in high-fidelity and delivered to the clients, accompanied by annotated wireframes and design system documentation
Challenges: Our UX team adapted where and how we collaborated in order to both effectively and efficiently communicate key information between teammates taking ownership of different roles along the way
Reflection: This project emphasized the power of teamwork and the importance of scoping, all while working through the lens of cultural sensitivity
*This case study intentionally omits the word “user” due to the subject matter of this project.
PROBLEM
Problem Statement
Misky Abshir and Salman Elmi are working to create a culturally-cognizant approach to mental and emotional health. Focusing first on the Twin Cities Somali community, our clients envisioned a digital tool that would be customizable to serve this target population, while also being scalable to meet the needs of multiple different populations in the future. Misky and Sal enlisted our UX team to design such a tool, while focusing on ease of understanding and navigation, accessibility and usability, and minimizing cognitive load.
Working with with Melanie Bethke, Amanda Snyder, Liz Torres, and Keira Gatta, many tasks that overlapped in timeline were divided between a research-focused team and design-oriented team. I worked across both research and design activities, such as competitive analysis, participant interviews, usability testing, and high-fidelity prototyping.
Understanding the Landscape
Our team conducted stakeholder interviews and generative research in order to understand client goals, the primary target audiences, existing market competitors, and current workflows and painpoints in how community members currently access health support.
During this initial discovery phase, I worked with a teammate to conduct a competitive analysis and feature review of a total of 12 existing products in the digital health and wellness space. Above, the analysis (Google Sheets) for the four primary competitors is pictured.
I also conducted participant interview sessions using directed storytelling and card sorting, along with the rose thorn bud method for synthesizing key findings.
Findings & Opportunities
Bringing our initial research findings together, our team distilled several key needs and opportunities for increasing access to culturally-cognizant mental and emotional health care.
Representation & Trust
Like many communities of color, the Twin Cities Somali community lacks access to providers who represent their identities, and often do not feel seen or heard in their healthcare experiences.
Communication Support
Many community members are not native english speakers, and a lack of access to appropriate communication support from bilingual providers, interpreters, or even culturally-sensitive providers may lead to misunderstanding and isolation.
Minimizing Cognitive Load
Existing digital tools in the health and wellness space are often designed to overcome barriers to physical access, but, in many cases, fail to meet the language, literacy, and cognitive needs of the target population.
“I want a counselor to know what my community is like, the family dynamics and cultural expectations and help me navigate that.”
- Research Study Participant
SOLUTION
Creating the Solution
During the initial design phase, my teammates developed sketches, information architecture diagrams, and mid-fidelity interactive prototypes of our proposed solution to key issues uncovered during our discovery research. This solution included both client-facing and counselor-facing portals.
These design solutions incorporated and prioritized features pulled from my competitive analysis, such as the learning and practice "Resources" noted in the information architecture diagram for the client-facing portal, above.
These design solutions also prioritized navigation and flows that reflected common workflows and tools noted in the directed storytelling sessions and card sorting activities, such as centralized file organization and communication tools in the counselor-facing portal, above.
Evaluating the Solution
I conducted usability testing sessions in order to gain insights into feature prioritization, language and communication needs, opportunities to deliver culturally-relevant components, and overall usability and accessibility.
We conducted usability testing sessions using the think-aloud protocol paired with affinity diagramming on the rose thorn bud categories for synthesis (Miro, “Buds” for the client-facing portal pictured above), and used Google Forms for note-taking so that our data would be output directly into a spreadsheet for side-by-side analysis.
Meanwhile, a team member conducted an internal heuristic evaluation on the same key flows that participants tested in our usability sessions.
Revising the Solution
Based on participant and internal evaluations, we developed revised high-fidelity interactive prototypes of the client- and counselor-facing portals. Three of the most notable updates to our testing-version prototypes included the following.
Color Palette
In order to focus on language and accessibility, we chose to test our solution in grayscale. We incorporated a color palette, as documented in our design system, into our revised solution.
Find a Provider
Community members interviewed in the usability sessions placed an extremely high value on the ability to find a new counselor and the desire for a good fit with their provider.
Counselor Reorganization
Key findings from counselor usability sessions revealed the need for restructuring content and navigation within the counselor-facing portal in order to more accurately represent existing workflows, as well as medical and regulatory standards.
I moved into a design role, revising the client profile pages within the counselor-facing portal. One area of focus was creating additional connections between the client- and counselor-facing portals, such as pulling account information to give providers access to information that could facilitate more responsive and individualized care.
Among other updates, I restructured the the client profile navigation from a card view to a tabbed view, in order to reduce the confusion that participants experienced when trying to back out of a screen after clicking several layers deep into client profile information and documentation.
DOCUMENTATION & DELIVERY
Documentation
In order to document key flows, guidelines, and future-state recommendations, and in preparation for client handoff, we created annotated wireframes and formalized our design system used throughout the design process.
The annotated wireframes include documentation of key contextual information, interactions, design rationale, and future-state recommendations.
The design system includes documentation and basic usage guidelines for the Neuro logo, color palette, typography, icons, image treatment, buttons, cards, navigation, and other componentry and UI elements.
Delivery
We delivered a 15-minute presentation our project to a general audience, conducted a client handoff meeting, and created a digital assets package to provide the client the tools they continue building on our work in the future.
The presentation included a background on the client and project goals, discovery research and target audience goals, demos of our prototyped solution, and strategic next steps.
The digital assets package included project documentation related to Neuro's design system, information architecture, and annotations, as well as presentation materials, and a summary of next steps and future recommendations.
CONCLUSION
Deliverables
Next Steps
Building on the current scope of work, an onboarding process for both clients and counselors could be built out in order to inform content that is relevant and useful to that person (e.g., demographic information, health history and needs, other account preferences, etc.).
An additional interface or account type could be built out for a secondary audience: family and friends who are a part of the primary client's support network. Such an account would focus on access to relevant resources and perhaps even provide a pathway to one's own care if needed.
Further research and testing could be conducted for both general and culturally-specific accessibility; in particular, this would include extensive research to support target populations that Neuro could be scaled to reach in the future.
Key Learnings & Takeaways
This project provided the opportunity to work closely within a team across a range of responsibilities. From research, to design, to documentation, we continuously balanced collaboration and ownership and worked across fully in-person, fully remote, and hybrid work setups.
We practiced scoping and working on staggered timelines, so that progress could still be made on the project even when one area may have reached a blocker.
Throughout the project, we adapted where and how we collaborated, from shared team spaces in Google Drive, to Figma, to Miro. We adjusted the structure and and strategy behind our daily standups in order to increase both communication and efficiency, and worked to deliver key information that was both digestible and informative.