Forem: juniusfree

Redesigning the patients’ experience of scheduling an appointment with a doctor - a UX case study

juniusfree — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 12:03:01 +0000

Originally published at Medium.com

Introduction

After my parents started to get sick, one of my tasks is to schedule an appointment with a doctor.

Scheduling an appointment with a doctor was very frustrating with a lot of issues and inconsistencies. That’s why I chose this problem as my first UX learning project.

For this project, I set the following requirements:

I will only do it in 1–2 days
The deliverable is a basic prototype of a mobile web app

Understanding the problem

Job-to-be-done —

I started by clarifying who the user is and the job that they are trying to get
done.

Based on my previous experiences, I considered two types of users:

The first one is the doctor’s secretary
The other group is the patients (or their caregivers)

In this project, I only focus on the patients because of the time constraints.

A job is defined as the reason why a user “hire” a product or service. For example, we “hire” a vehicle to get from point A to point B. We “hire” a toothbrush to clean our teeth.

To get the job of the patients, I asked why the patients call their doctor’s secretary. There are different ways of looking at these. I can focus on the bigger goal of “getting advice from a doctor”. I can also look at the specific goal of “scheduling an appointment with a doctor” which is a step to the goal of “getting advice from a doctor”. I choose to focus on the goal of making an appointment.

While in the middle of the design process, I realized that there are two possible contexts for this job. The first context is when a patient is looking for a new doctor. The second context is when the patient wants to go for follow up check-up.

I focused on the second context only because of the time constraints.

Here’s the final job statement that I focused on:

The patients want to schedule appointment with their doctor for their follow-up checkup.

Job steps —

To get more details, I also captured the steps that a patient might try to do to get the job done.

The goal of capturing the “job steps” is to discover the complete view of allthe points at which I can add or improve value.

To do this, I started by focusing on the current platform and solution that the users rely on.

To get the job done today, the patients call the secretary to make an appointment. Before doing that, they may have tried to retrieve the phone number from an old prescription. They might also have tried to recall the schedule of the doctor before calling.

From that insight, I captured the steps and make it solution-free. Making the steps solution-free will help me understand the users’ goals and generate a different feature.

As stated above, one of the steps that the patients do today is to call the secretary. Asking why the patients do this, I can get several important job steps. One of them is to determine how to get an appointment. Some clinics schedule their patient on a first-come, first-serve basis. Others prefer that the patient visit the clinic to book an appointment.

Based on this process, I captured the steps where the patients might get frustrated:

Determine how to set an appointment with the doctor
Determine the doctor’s clinic hours
Check the available time and date
Set the schedule on my preferred time and date
Confirm the appointment with the doctor
Get an update if there is a change in the doctor’s schedule
Re-schedule my appointment

Having a detailed list of the job and job steps, I can now generate features with less guesswork.

Generating Solution

Generate ideas: platform —

Since one of my goal in this project is to create a digital product, my only choice is to create a mobile web app.

Generate ideas: features —

Next, I generated ideas for the features that I will include in the web app.

I used the “job steps” above as a starting point.

I also studied how the current platform fails when it comes to cost, efficiency, and result. Based on that, I determine the direction of improvement that I can make.

I also used creativity triggers to generate features.

Example of how I generate features

Using this process, I came up with this basic set of features. I organized it according to the user flow that I will create:

Step 1: Landing Page / Search a doctor

It should have a search functionality
It should have a clear process on how to book with a doctor

Step 2: Choose a doctor

It should allow the patient to find and choose a doctor

Step 3: Choose the time, date and clinic

It should have several dates and time options for the users
It should have a list of the doctor’s clinic location
It should have the updated clinic hours of the doctors
It should have the list of time and date with available spots in the next 2 weeks

Step 4: Provide your personal information

It should get the least information about the patient

Step 5: Wait for the confirmation e-mail

It should send an email and/or a text message to the patient

Create a prototype —

In creating a prototype, I started by deciding the content that I will include on each page. I add the basic interactions for each page.

Initial content

Initial interaction prototype

After planning the content, I created a basic layout and improve the UI.

Final prototype

Final prototype with interaction

Personal Insight

Doing my first UX challenge is not easy but also rewarding. There are lots to learn like research, interaction design, prototyping tools, etc.

Next Steps

Having a small amount of time and resources, here are the things I would like to do in my next UX challenge:

Interview several users to validate the problem and test the solution
Improve the UI and branding
Understand the “job” of the other users. In this case, I should also understand the “job” of the secretaries.

🇵🇭 https://twitter.com/juniusfree

After learning thru tutorials for 9 months, I finally forced myself to "solve my own problem".

juniusfree — Sun, 06 Jan 2019 13:08:24 +0000

Looking for feedback/comment. TIA.

https://savers-app.netlify.com/

juniusfree / savers-app

Savers app - for individuals who wants to monitor their savings

Savers app

A learning project of @juniusfree

Status

WORK-IN-PROGRESS

About the project

Target users and their goal

Individuals who manage their savings record

Common manual alternatives

pen and paper
bank statements

Common issues

Pen and paper and other physical records can be misplaced easily
Calculating the data is time consuming when manually recording. (e.g. amount to save per month, months remaining, total amount saved)

Solution

Savers helps individuals in managing their savings record while also saving their time.

Technology used

ReactJS
React Router
React Context
React Hooks
HTML5
CSS3
Tachyons.io
Moment.js
Numerals.js
UUID

View on GitHub

About the app:
A very basic react app for any person who wants to monitor their savings goal. I don't have a backend yet so no data will be saved.

Tech used:
React, React Hooks, React Context, React Router, Moment.js, Numerals.js, UUID, Tachyons.io

My background

My father has cancer(s)

juniusfree

#beginners#career#help

How do you transfer the knowledge from HtDP to ReactJS?

juniusfree — Wed, 12 Dec 2018 01:37:26 +0000

Hi,

I'm currently taking the course "How to Code: Simple Data" (https://www.edx.org/course/how-code-simple-data-ubcx-htc1x) which is based on the book "How to Design Programs" (https://htdp.org/2018-01-06/Book/).

If you have taken this course (or read the book), can you share how you used the recipes in designing a React program? A concrete example will be very helpful.

TIA.

My father has cancer(s)

juniusfree — Sat, 29 Sep 2018 12:18:23 +0000

...(thyroid and thymic cancer) and Myasthenia Gravis. My mother is undergoing dialysis and have problems in her spine. I never taught that taking care of my parents would help me in learning HTML and CSS. I learned that people are generous, I now appreciate small progress, and I learn to be decisive.

People are generous

Last April, my father got pneumonia. He got ventilated. Everyday, we're hoping for quick improvements but it didn't happen. Until one day, the nurse informed us that our health insurance were already maxed out. We now have to buy the medicines. They were expensive. So I decided to ask for help from family and friends. They didn't disappoint us. We raised around Php 600,000 ($12,000). The biggest donation even came from a complete stranger! It was enough to pay the bills.

There's no difference in learning front-end web development. People are willing to help if you know how to ask. Once, I was stuck in CSS. After watching a talk on Youtube, I asked this expert for clarification. She responded and gave me some great advice. When I came across this online course, I asked the author on how to get started. He answered me and even gave a free pass to his course!

Appreciating small progress

When my mother started having intense back pain, she can't do almost anything alone. It's hard. My father has cancer and now my mother can't walk. To heal her back pain, the doctor advice her to exercise daily. She started the exercises with the help of a therapist. At first, it seems like nothing is happening. The pain won't go away fast. But as soon as she got better, my mother started exercising on her own. She's persistent and follow the routines daily. Now, she can walk with a cane around our house and do things with minimal help.

I started web development with a mindset that I can find a shortcut. Lots of articles online make it look like learning web development is easy as 1-2-3. Big mistake for me. It makes learning slower and more confusing when there's no progress. So I changed my strategy and focus on learning small things daily. If I memorized and used a few new CSS properties today, that'll be a win for me. If I created a website with a basic component, that's progress. A lot of times I still got stuck. But I now know how to be patient and focus on small daily improvements.

Decisive

After we learned about my father's cancers, we started asking for advice from doctors. I taught that there are clear solutions that we can follow. But once we started getting these opinions, it become overwhelming. Besides, people we know also want to give advice. Searching online adds to the confusion. For example, opinion varies about the treatment for thyroid cancer. It's not easy because making a mistake will only worsen the situation. But at the end of the day, we have to make a decision. We learned that we need to get opinions but at the same time make a decision based on what's best for us.

When I started out in learning web development, I taught that it will be straightforward. But that's not the case. A lot of materials with different approach are available online. Even experts don't always agree about the best practices. This is confusing for me. I got paralysis by analysis. One day, I realized that I'm not making progress by comparing these options. To avoid getting stuck, I decided that I'll have to choose one and stick to it. I can always change. This is not a life or death situation. I have to try a lot of things. I also realized that I can learn from diverse opinions and combine them to make my own practice.

Conclusion

I never taught that the situation with my parents will help me in learning HTML and CSS. I'm no way an expert in HTML and CSS. I'm still at the very bottom of web development. But no matter what, I now know how to ask for help, appreciate small progress, and be decisive. My father's cancers and my mother's health issue are still a big problem. But instead of whining, I tried to learn from it as much as I can.

I'm looking for work to continually support my parents. If you have an opening for a remote front-end web developer and willing to hire people who aren't proven, please let me know! TIA.

twitter: @juniusfree
email: juniusfree@yahoo.com