Caring for Caregivers
JULY 2021
Goal Capture the ideal caregiver user experience to inform design and development teams for a retail pharmacy’s holistic health app.
Role Experience Research Lead
Client Retail Pharmacy, Distributor, Wholesaler
Scope 4 months, $200K, 3-person team (Experience Research), $1M+, 6-person team (Design & Product)
The project goal focused on how to inform design sprints while validating prior research.
Initial hypothesis / prototype and its features tested with caregivers
Business Challenge
Leveraging a product roadmap and strategy pre-defined by a management consultant, understand how features need to come together to reduce caregiver burden and enable access to mental health resources. How might caregivers, who often manage household and healthcare budgeting, adopt and continue to use this retail pharmacy’s new care app?
Project Goals
Envision the ideal user experience through generative and evaluative testing with end customers / caregivers to inform strategic and near-term product (app) design.
Approach: Just enough qualitative and quantitative research
Research approach: two different research streams work in concert with one another and in parallel.
Resonance testing stimulus for remote interviews
Resonance testing analysis and synthesis of emerging themes
Research Structure and Rationale
EXPERIENCE RESEARCH
One-on-one, remote, moderated sessions with Caregivers. Understand and define experience principles and requirements with insights derived from evaluative, moderated interviews and co-creating sessions with caregivers. Recruit based on client-provided market research and early segmentation.
USER EXPERIENCE RESEARCH
Moderated concept testing to identify user preferences for specific features and interactions via IntelliZoom recruiting and A/B UserZoom testing with larger set of participants and add-on section of moderated one-on-one sessions (see above).
RESEARCH IN PARALLEL WITH DESIGN
Hosted cross-functional “pin-ups” to gather feedback to and drive engagement in in-flight qualitative research. We continuously communicated with and informed the Design team of findings customer needs were addressed and incorporated into release versions. Likewise, we iterated guide, concepts based on progress or changes from Design.
Key Insights from Research
Features for design team and product owners to prioritize for caregiver app.
Design Playbook to inform and direct design and product teams
Insight that directed Product Design
Support caregivers at different capacity levels with the right tools at the right time.
Features should include actions that match different caregivers’ capacity to adopt and use new tools. Throughout a caregivers' journey, they may move up and down between the following levels: organize, prioritize, optimize.
To choose the app over what they do today, caregivers must see how the app is a ‘one stop shop’ and limit linking to outside sources. When outside sources are necessary, provide connections back to the app when possible.
To be the first tool caregivers reach for the app needs to be easy and intuitive (i.e. making a task list or uploading documents), include clear plain language and be eye-catching, including large buttons for easy use.
Outcomes: Evergreen and Continuous assets that reinforce the voice of end customer
Journey map for multiple caregiver user cases
Pre-release screens with incorporated research
IMPACT
Pre-release version of app has been released and is in pilot with a Medicare Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) / Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) startup.
DELIVERABLES
Canonical, foundational Sprint Review Analysis and Insight Reports to onramp new team members within a high-churn product team.
Design Playbook and Journey Map with experience KPIs to measure success and trajectory towards vision or ideal experience
On-going Usability Findings to maintain functional if not “delightful” UX.