EqualCare
Overview
EqualCare is a mobile application that connects caregivers with families. EqualCare can help users locate caregivers along with being transparent about wages and scheduling.
Problem
Healthcare has advanced greatly within the past century and the population’s life expectancy continues to grow, thus leading to a growing demand for healthcare workers to help care for aging relatives. However, after further research, I’ve noticed that there is a constant struggle to connect the healthcare workers to the patients, which led to added stress for both parties.
Solution
The creation of a mobile app that seeks to connect caregivers and patients easily with one another. Users can locate caregivers/patients within a certain vicinity along with being transparent about wages and scheduling.
Process
Discovery
Ideation
Design
Test
Reflection
Tools
Figma
Miro
Google Drive
Duration
3 months
My Role
Sole UX/UI Designer
Discovery
Secondary Research
To get started with creating EqualCare, I conducted secondary research and found a couple of different issues that would hinder the success of EqualCare.
Healthcare workers have low pay compared to the amount of work that is required.
Families have trouble communicating with healthcare workers about the needs of patients.
Some healthcare workers are not properly trained for certain patients and some might be overqualified.
Screener Survey
I created a survey where I received responses from ten potential candidates. Candidates were chosen based on their previous experience in the healthcare field along with those with experience looking/hiring healthcare workers. Four out of the five candidates chosen were interviewed in person with only one candidate being a Zoom call. Interviews were recorded and transcribed with permission from the interviewees.
Primary Research
Once I better understood the problems EqualCare faced from my secondary research, I started working on my primary research plan and creating my screener survey and potential candidates to interview.
Before interviewing, I created a research plan that I could reference back on, which included my objective, methodology, and the characteristics of the participants I would be interviewing.
Once the interviews were completed, I used the data that I obtained to create both affinity and empathy maps that would be the basis of this application.
Interviews
As soon as I found five participants who matched the criteria of the screening survey, I was able to set up appointments to conduct the interviews. Four out of the five interviews were completed and recorded in person. One of the participants lived out of state so they were interviewed via Zoom. These questions allowed me to figure out which pain points were the most crucial along with what users might want to see in the app.
Questions included:
Are the current ways of finding professional caregiving and/or patients effective and on point?
Can technology help both families and caregivers find each other and be a good match?
Can caregivers have more confidence in finding work with good pay along with families finding highly-trained healthcare workers to take care of loved ones?
Are resources aimed to assist healthcare workers what is truly needed?
Affinity Mapping
As I compiled information from the interviews of the five participants that had taken place, I created an affinity map to see where the most significant pain points would be. Grouping the different responses with the points below gave me a better understanding of what would be needed later in the design and experience process. The affinity map also allowed me to prioritize the four points as stated below.
Resources currently used
Challenges
Qualities that are important in a caregiver
Training
Empathy Mapping
After sorting through the data and different pain points, I came up with a family and caregiver/healthcare worker perspective. Using the affinity map as a reference, I sorted through different responses that would help create my user persona for the project. Using two different perspectives also showed me what both sides were possibly looking for in terms of the app along with having similar pain points. I found that both the family and caregiver sides had a hard time trying to find each other and would have to go through third-party companies or referrals. Resources were also a big problem for both sides. I reflected this in my persona “Helen” when creating a user persona for this project.
Persona
I’ve created a persona based on the information and feedback from my affinity and empathy map. This will help serve as a guide throughout the project process along with keeping in mind who the app would be geared toward. Having a “Helen” allowed me to be able to reference down the line with the design process.
Ideation
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User Flows
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Ideation 〰️ User Flows 〰️
Ideation
Problem Statements (HMWs)
To understand the issues that would possibly plague users, I created a series of HMW (How Might We) depicting both the family side and the caregiver side.
HMWs for Patients/Families
How might we enable users to look for caregivers/home health workers?
How might we implement users to connect with qualified/trained caregivers and home health workers?
How might we alleviate the stress from users worrying about affording care?
How might we relieve the emotional aspects of users when they are dealing with loved ones and the care that they receive?
HMWs for Caregivers
How might we aid users in finding work as a caregivers/home health worker?
How might we assist users in negotiating pay without being “awkward” about it?
How might we support users with a lack of resources resulting in burnout/stress?
How might we make users feel confident in being able to manage their schedule with multiple patients?
Ideation
After gathering and researching all the necessary information, I decided to place that into the form of a general rough draft of what EqualCare could look like. The drafts formed below were based on the issues that came up from the patient's/family side.
User Stories
With MVP (Minimum Viable Product), it was important to understand what users would be expecting from EqualCare. I ranked the user stories from high, middle, and low priority regarding my ideations and previous activities.
As a user, I want to be able to make an account so that I can find caregivers, manage payments, maintain schedules, and benefit from resources from the app.
As a user, I want to be able to make an account so that I can find patients, manage incoming payments, maintain my schedules, and benefit from the resources of the app.
As a user, I want to look for a caregiver who is trained and qualified so that I can have peace of mind when finding care for my loved ones.
As a user, I want to have the financial process as smooth as possible so that I and the caregiver(s) have an easier time navigating difficult situations.
As a user, I want to have various educational/emotional resources so that I can have less stress/burnout.
Site Map
With the site map, this was the start of how the application was being mapped out. Using the user stories as a major reference, the site map was created with how the application could flow from the user's perspective.
User Flows
Using the site maps as inspiration, I created user flows that the intended user would need to take to complete the desired tasks. Being able to make it simple and easy to understand for the user also has a big impact on making the flow.
Find a caregiver within my city
Find the cost of each caregiver
Locate the schedule of each caregiver
Sketches
With everything coming together, I drafted three user flows by hand with influence from other UI designs I came across that were similar to the app that I was creating. Taking reference from my ideations, I drew a simple yet present design that would be easy for users to follow but have a minimal design.
Wireframes
Following thorough user research and iterations of rough drafts, the low-fidelity wireframes were created. Subsequently, medium-fidelity wireframes were developed, introducing additional details that brought them closer to the high-fidelity wireframe version. My design approach aimed for an open and transparent user interface, ensuring clarity about the application's offerings. The overarching goal was to make the user experience straightforward and accessible for individuals with varying levels of computer literacy.
Design
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Style
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Design 〰️ Style 〰️
Design
Moodboard
Taking into account that other health apps have done well, I relied on some for inspiration on the possible color schemes and themes that allowed users to gravitate towards the app. Especially in healthcare, I chose the attribute to be honest, thorough, practical, and extraordinary along with imagery inspiration that conveys a calm yet modern feel.
Style Guide
Using the mood board, I began to create a style guide that would serve as the basis of the high-fidelity wireframes. It would take four to five different versions of the style guide to find the right fit for the app. The style guide was important since it would allow me to have a reference of the colors that I would be using. I chose mostly a series of minimally dark to light blue colors along with a clean white background.
Hi-Fidelity Screens
In transitioning from wireframes to high-fidelity designs, I implemented several key changes to bring the app's envisioned appearance to life. Referring back to the established style guide, mood board, and initial wireframes, I incorporated imagery to align with the app's aesthetic. On the application's homepage, I introduced a section at the bottom, providing users with easy access to informative videos showcasing the various resources offered by EqualCare. Additionally, I incorporated user-friendly search bars to facilitate the quick location of specific caregivers or those available in different areas.
Prototype
Once the high-fidelity screens were finished, I proceeded to ready the next step which was prototyping. I went and continued prototyping with Figma since my project was already on Figma. I focused first on the user flows and how I would believe that a user would go through to get to their desired destination. I made a couple of edits to reflect those changes along with some UI adjustments to account for scrolling and tapping.
Redesign
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Testing
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Redesign 〰️ Testing 〰️
Testing
Usability Testing
As soon as the prototype was done, I conducted usability testing with five participants to find if any problems would need to be fixed. The main objective was to better understand the thought processes of users to better serve the user’s end goal.
There were three tasks that the participants had to complete:
(1) View a list of caregivers with their location
(2) View Harriet Doe’s pay rate
(3) Input a schedule to find caregivers with the same availability.
Findings
Redesign
After reviewing the findings from the usability testing, I focused on addressing my priorities for updating the application. One critical priority was users' confusion when using military time on the schedule page. As many users are accustomed to analog time, I introduced a button on the schedule input page, allowing users to switch between military and analog time formats. Another significant concern was the confusion users faced on the finance page due to the uniform appearance of buttons. To alleviate this, I made subtle adjustments to the buttons' outline and colors, enhancing users' ability to distinguish between various actions. Following these improvements, some minor changes were implemented for user convenience such as being able to locate a caregiver by zip code and state on the caregiver page.
Issue #1: Military time on the Schedule Page is confusing to users who aren’t used to this type of time.
Summary:
All participants were able to complete Task 3 despite the issue.
Only one out of the five participants was okay with having just military time as the main time.
Four out of the five would like a converter button to switch between military time and regular time.
Recommendations:
Adding a side button on the Schedule Input page that allows users to convert to different times (military etc.)
Possibly, later on, adding the option to have a preference for military time or regular time in the settings.
Issue #2: Buttons on the Finance Page were confusing to users (all looked the same).
Summary:
Three users reported that the Finance Page and its subjects were similar looking and confusing to read through.
Because buttons and subjects looked similar, completing Task 2 was considerably harder than the other two tasks.
Two of the users reported that they got impatient when they couldn’t find the right button to continue the task.
Recommendations:
Editing the Finance Page so that the buttons are different from one another and thus easier for users to differentiate.
Possibly change the wording of the buttons and add a divider between each of the different topics on the Finance Page.
Issue #3: Too many steps to find caregivers' location
Summary:
All users were able to complete the task.
Three out of the five participants would have liked a faster way to search for a caregiver.
Users would rather have the app have a “Use my Location”
Recommendations:
Edit the search area of the Caregiver Page to include the name, state, zip code, etc.
