Pluto

2.5 WEEKS REMOTELY

UX RESEARCH & MOBILE APP DESIGN

A health startup optimising the workflow of dietitians and increasing the engagement of patients and dietitians between consultations.

This project was in collaboration with UX Designer Hao Liang.

My Role

I led our team through patient interviews, surveys, user journey maps, designing the mobile prototype and usability testing.

Deliverables

Mobile Prototype

Research Artefacts

Identify Opportunities with Patients & Dietitians

The brief given to us by Pluto was to identify pain points and opportunities of dietitians and patients of dietitians from their past experiences, workflow and the dynamics of the patient and dietitian relationship.

Pluto to Begin Development & Future Planning

Pluto had identified a market gap within the dietetics industry which required user research for both user groups and requested an interactive prototype for the patient-facing side of the platform to begin development.

PLUTO - Key Patient Insights

Patients Want to Make Sustainable Changes

After 5 patient interviews and receiving 62 survey responses to investigate our assumptions and their engagement with their program, insights showed that dietitians are seen as a long-term investment into their own health and wellbeing, and wanted to make sustainable changes to their lifestyle for the benefit of their health.

How Do Patients Achieve These Changes? What Are The Barriers?

Current Methods of Tracking Hinders Motivation

All interviewees had used a food diary, but 4 out of 5 developed their own means of tracking to save time and maintain objectivity.

27.4% of patients identified that mobile is their primary platform to track their intake.

Patients Want Education and Personalised Advice

Interviewees want to understand how and why certain choices affect their body so that they can apply that knowledge in future.

All interviewees identified that they independently sought extra resources, during and after their dietitian consultations.

Dietitians’ Workflows Aren't Optimised For Care

After 5 dietitian interviews about their workflow, insights showed there were several technical barriers for dietitians within remote and in-person clinical sessions as multiple analogue and digital platforms are used for patient care.

How Do Dietitians Currently Work?

Dietitians Require Specific Information Before Consultations

All participants required their patients to complete and sign forms providing extra information about their medical history.

All participants request for their patients to use a food diary, often provided as a booklet or a printout.

Key Dietitian Insights

Focusing on the Busy Patient & the Non-Diet Dietitian

After synthesising our research through affinity mapping, we created the following personas according to the trends and insights from our research in order to understand and identify opportunities and pain points.

The Busy Patient

Sue McDonald • Age 38

"I want to improve my health for my daughter"

Goals & Needs

To be educated to make long-term sustainable changes for her and her family

Pain Points

Doesn't understand how the food she eats affects her physically and mentally
Lacks motivation to make changes on her own
Feels that she spends too much time recording in her food diary

The Non-Diet Dietitian

Laura Delaney • Age 34

"I want to help my patients stay motivated and reach their goals"

Goals & Needs

To motivate and educate patients about food choices without being restrictive

Pain Points

Looking at food diaries takes up valuable time during her consultations
She goes through forms with her patients in consultations if they haven't completed them
Recording notes and bookkeeping are time consuming

Personas

Resources Are Given To Patients To Help Make Sustainable Changes

4 out of 5 dietitians interviewed use physical resources to educate patients in order to help them make sustainable choices in future.

2 of these 4 dietitians have migrated to telehealth and experienced technical barriers with patients with these resources.

Existing Journey Map for Sue the Patient

Opportunities in interacting with resources were identified in the existing journey of Sue the Patient.

Journey Map

Existing Journey Map for Laura the Dietitian

Opportunities when interacting with more than one platform for work were identified in the existing journey of Laura the Dietitian.

There are opportunities in the Patient and Dietitian's journeys when they interact with more than one platform.

Service Design Blueprint

Pluto Combining the Multi-Platform Approach

After utilising a contextual inquiry and our insights from the patient and dietitians' existing journeys, we identified how we could address opportunities in the current service with a proposed Service Design Blueprint.

The key takeaway from this blueprint is that both the Patient and the Dietitian can access Pluto for resources, information and communication as highlighted in the blue coloured boxes.

Pluto has the opportunity to optimise Laura the Dietitian’s workflow while still supporting Sue the Patient’s engagement with her program.

Prioritising Support & Engagement for Patients on Mobile

Sue the Patient’s goal is to learn about food, make sustainable changes for herself and her family and keep motivated to complete her program. We prioritised the following solutions in our patient-facing prototype.

Customisable & personalised food diary capabilities & dashboard according to the patient's healthcare plan

View and book appointments as well as direct contact capabilities

Receive and access accredited resources including session notes during and between consultations

As 27.4% of patients had identified that mobile is their primary platform to track their intake and the solutions identified required native app capabilities, we designed a mobile app for the MVP prototype on Figma.

Prioritising Efficiency & Resourcefulness for Dietitians

As Laura the Dietitian’s goal is to educate her patients about food and her current workflow is preventing her from providing her most effective patient care, we prioritised the following solutions as recommendations for Pluto.

Ability to see and adjust their daily schedule

Ability to Access & Update Patient Files as well as

Share Resources

Dashboard to show unread messages, appointments and unfinished patient files

Visually Defining Elements Through Iterations

After I built out our sketches on Figma, we tested the first iteration of our prototype with 5 users. Results showed that they experienced difficulty identifying different elements of pages and navigating through Pluto due to lack of labelling and visual identity.

Dashboard

Users could not identify the original screen as the dashboard and found it difficult to understand as it was visually too similar to the rest of the app. The next iteration integrated a new layout of the dashboard and provided the user with a high-level view of their progress for the day.

1st Iteration Dashboard

2nd Iteration Dashboard

Food Diary

Users could not identify the original page due to lack of labelling and orientation and struggled to identify elements of the page at a high-level. The next iteration introduced the Timeline concept for users to have an amalgamated view of their progress.

1st Iteration Food Diary

2nd Iteration Food Diary

Resources

Users were confused at the separation and categorisation of the resources as they saw resources as one category. They also identified that recipes and videos are associated with each other. The next iteration combined these categories to become a library for users.

1st Iteration Resources

2nd Iteration Resources

Initial Questionnaire

The flow of the initial set up of Pluto was augmented in our final iteration to allow for cross-functional app capabilities for tracking exercise for efficiency, as well as give the user more control of what was being tracked.

2nd Iteration Set Up Questionnaire

Feedback on Architecture After Final Testing

Our final test demonstrated our 5 users enjoying the engagement, ease and efficiency of the tracking, as well as the increased access to resources and engagement with their dietitian.

Users had difficulty finding their consultation notes as they expected them to be found in Resources rather than Appointments. They also expected a high-level overview of their statistics to show their progress on the Dashboard.

Reflection

A prototype flexible in UI for to be determined branding was designed aiming to increase patient engagement with their dietitian and support and educate them throughout their health journey. It was fantastic to work with patients again, and it certainly won't be my last time!

My interview and design skills have definitely improved thanks to my fantastic project partner Hao Liang. His empathy when speaking with users, his ideation techniques, and his ability to see the bigger picture while communicating concepts are just some of the many things I have learned from him.

The Final Mobile Prototype