UX Case Study: a new approach to physio-therapy
Concept Project |UX\UI design | 1 week sprint | Solo
Recovering comfortably from home has never been easier!
OVERVIEW
Healing Moves is a concept for an app that was developed during a 1-week design sprint aimed to explore the design process of creating a mobile application.
This project took a deep dive into the user’s attitudes and behaviours in relation to physiotherapy. In exploratory interviews with potential client, I uncovered an opportunity to help with new solutions to do exercises properly. Using this app, people of all kinds can do their designated exercises with the support they need comfortably from home.
THE PROCESS
For this project, I used the double diamond process of the design thinking methodology. This process starts with a discovery phase. Here, I interviewed customers to get a broad insight into different aspects of physio therapy from the customers' point of view. In the second phase, I narrowed down the insights to specific problems. Thereafter, during the Define phase, I developed solutions for the problems through ideation. The results were then narrowed down and shaped into a prototype after multiple iterations in the Deliver phase.
Next, I would like to guide you through the story of this User Experience Design of each phase.
DISCOVER —
Revealing insights
Interviews help gain a deep understanding of people’s attitudes, motivations and behaviors. They ensure me that I’m designing for others, not for myself. Furthermore, it allows to challenge assumptions. Combined with experience maps, they help me identify users’ needs and find solutions to meet them.
Understanding pain points
A brief introduction of my customer Pritpal’s background she’s 31 and she lives with her husband in a flat in London. She really likes traveling and she loves doing yoga and going to the gym. Indeed, she took a gap year from her job last year because she wanted to spend her time traveling around the world. However, after 6 months she had a serious accident, that led to surgery on her knee.
My main goal was to understand Pritpal’s routine and how she had been dealing physically and emotionally with her situation and what I could do to improve it.
In the first interview, I started with general questions.
These enabled me to create an experience map, focusing my attention on the main actions that she had to do in order to complete the activity with detailed descriptions for each step that she took during the activity and a clear illustration of how she felt during the action.
After mapping her journey, I learned that her frustration peaked every time she did some practice. However, that feeling was somehow related to the following actions.
“I do the exercises after class at 5 pm, it’s been horrible, sometimes it’s really hard find the motivation, repeatedly I don’t even know if I done the exercise correctly”
These are the main pain points that I gained :
- She’s not confident she can perform the exercises properly
- She doesn’t receive enough feedbacks as she speaks with her physio just once a week
- There is little progress — as a result, she often loses motivation
- Sometimes she feels bored by doing this activity
Thus, my challenge became clear:
Outlining a problem statement
Pritpal needs a way to do her daily exercises and receive enough support to make sure she’s following the correct procedure because she feels confused and insecure and dealing with the situation is hard on her.
DEFINE
Exploring solutions
To get the creative juices flowing, I sketched out a handful of concepts. I tried to analyze each of Pripal’s pain points in deep order to come up with the most useful ideas that would make her experience positive.
I redefined the pain points below.
- An app that gives you easy access to find the exercises with explained video with a relax option too.
- An online coach that helps you to follow the schedule every day
- List of the exercises where you can mark what you have done and add feedbacks visible to the doc
- Visible progress and goals from data gained of feedbacks
- Personalized exercises based on the sports that she likes
- A platform that permit to schedule ahead of the exercises with her physiotherapist
Outcome statement
I decided to focus on :
DEVELOP —
Defining the user flow
A user flow was devised to outline the steps Pritpal will take when using the app during her practice. This flow assumes Pritpal has previously set up an account and already started her journey of recovery.
The main focuses are :
The “Activities section” is organized to provide Pritpal with all the info and explanations that she needs to perform the exercise correctly and keep track of the improvements.
The “Feedbacks section” is created to have an effortless way to communicate with the doctor and keep him updated more frequently. With the purpose of making effectual changes to offer Pritpal the best recovery plan that she could have.
User testing
I conducted three user testing and I uncovered some rich insights to carry into the next prototype.
The following areas caused the most confusion for users and needed refinement:
Re-Define the user flow
With another round of user testing, I had the possibility to validate and improve the part that was not clear to the user, I had also to modify the user flow based on the user feedbacks
Adding another area that I thought should be necessary to archive Pritpal’s goals. “Personalised exercises” allows her to have a variety of exercises based on her interests therefore she’ll not feel bored and consequently lose motivation.(This feature is a next steps focus)
DELIVERY —
Scenario
She already has an account and she has already logged in.
She started using the app a month ago and she has to do the last exercise of the day and add feedbacks
Clickable prototype
Next steps
One of the aims is to keep the app as simple and intuitive as possible and do new user testing to refine the action available at the moment.
Consequently, some deeper research should be done to understand what other details we can add.
A good solution to achieve that might be to add a new “persona” following a similar process.
We want to focus on new features:
- Personalized exercises based on sport preferences
- Shared boards between user and doctor
- Progress data that keep the user
THE OUTCOME
Now, Pritpal feels confident, she can perform her exercises properly, receiving instant feedback from her physio, knowing that whatever she is doing is the best that she can possibly do.
When she feels bored by doing the same routine each day she can substitute in a few clicks.
Reflection
Time flew. By the end of the 1 week, I explored many techniques and methods applied in the Double Diamond process. While learning about the UX research and design process, I also got to know my fellow classmate better.
Thank you very much for reading my case study. If you’d like to know more about the project, my process, or simply just would like a chat, feel free to say hi on LinkedIn , or visit my portfolio.
