I simplified the American Healthcare System for users through an AI Health Assistant app.
Project Description
I designed an app featuring a text and voice-based AI health assistant called Clover. It acted like a centralized source of healthcare information with easy retrieval, with useful features like SOS and medicine tracking. The product overcame many technological barriers for non tech-savvy users.
This project successfully achieved the challenge goal of simplifying health literacy and won 1st place at UXTerps Design Hackathon 2023.
CLIENT
Communicate Health Inc.
Role
Product Designer
Team Size
2 members
Project Year
2023
Research Methods
Literature Review
Interviews
Affinity Diagram
Design Tools
Figma
Illustrator
Shotcut
Health Literacy - What does it mean?
Health literacy refers to an individual's ability to obtain, understand and use any healthcare information to make appropriate health related decisions.
In a university-wide UX design challenge hosted by Communicate Health Inc, I was asked to design a solution for a problem related to this topic.
The Design Challenge
"Simplify Health Literacy for users through the use of AI"
I was allowed to design any creative solution that fit this constraint. The catch? I had to study health literacy, do user research, come up with solutions and a high fidelity design in 24 hours.
Investigating Health Literacy
I spent the first 6-7 hours studying about health literacy, and talking to relevant people of various demographics and technological competency. My teammate and I wanted our solutions to be backed by real research data.
Literature Review
I studied research papers and academic journals to understand health literacy and its relationship with AI.
User Interviews
I interviewed people with varying demographics and technical knowledge about healthcare.
Affinity Diagram
Using the data from the interviews, we created an affinity diagram to interpret the broader themes.
Our Observations
Simplicity
Healthcare information is usually confusing and overwhelming
Trust
Healthcare information being reliable is very important
Single Source
It is a hassle to gather healthcare information from multiple places
Idea Brainstorm
Solution 1: Centralized Information
"I want an online service which clarifies my medical questions in one place"
We decided to make an AI healthcare assistant app as our product, which would fetch any kind of healthcare information as easily as Siri or Google Assistant.
If designed correctly, this would not only centralize all information to a single source, but also overcome many technological, educational, and language barriers for user.
Solution 2: Simplifying Health Insurance
"Insurance is quite confusing, especially as someone new to the country"
To make insurance information less confusing, I created features that would allow users to scan documents and ask any questions to the AI. In a business project, this would raise some privacy concerns, but we didn't have those constraints in this design challenge.
Alternatively, users could also ask the AI to answer their questions through the web instead, but the answers would not be personalized.
Solution 3: Prescription Management
"It takes effort to keep up with medicines and doctors"
I created features to track medicine, send reminders, and just like insurance - scan prescriptions for quicker answers.
Having reminders about medicines and next visit to doctors in the same place as other healthcare information would make it easier to access and remember.
Solution 4: Branding and Trust
"Trust is very important in healthcare"
Using Adobe Illustrator, I gave a face to our AI - Clover, the AI helper. Drawing inspiration from pop culture robots, I tried to make him look as friendly and trustworthy as possible. We also decided to use very empathetic language when giving Clove his lines to make the users feel more at ease using the app.
Solution 5: Emergency Features
"For medical advice, I proceed with the best way I know"
I added an SOS feature in the app which would help people in situations where they are unclear on what to do, like in emergency situations - which can cause panic.
I ensured this feature could be accessed outside the app as well through a phone trigger.
Improving Visuals and Accessibility
High Fidelity Screens
I refined the low level screens by adding brand colors, visuals and connecting them meaningfully together.
I used the Communicate Health brand colors as my app's design scheme.
Colorblind Palettes
I ensured the design followed WCAG 2.0 accessibility standards for fonts, navigations and contrast. I created alternate colorblind friendly palettes which the user could switch to from the settings.
User Flow Example
Result
1st place
The resulting design won first place at the UXTerps Design Hackathon 2023.
Reflections
This project was my most exciting one, having to deliver research backed design solutions in just under 24 hours. The race against the clock helped me understand the importance of prioritizing key tasks and design constraints.
What would I do differently?
Task Management. Often my teammate and I were working on the same task together. It would have been more time efficient to work on separate tasks while coordinating asynchronously, and given us some time to conduct usability tests.
