MEGAN KARD | product designer

Approaching Feature Redesign

The unique challenge to this project was getting into the nitty gritty of what users need in a scheduling interface versus what already exists as part of the Stroll platform.  This framework for approaching the project brought up a number of questions to be answered:

What are the pain points within the current interface?

What functionality do people expect in medical scheduling interfaces?

What do people find intuitive for calendar interfaces?

What existing products influence what people expect?

The Research

To answer the questions we came up with, our team approached research from three angles:

1)  TESTING & INVENTORY

• User testing of the existing Stroll scheduling interface
  
• Inventory of features and interactions of the current interface.
  

2)  INTERVIEWS

• User Interviews with schedulers at small radiology facilities and large hospital call centers.
  
• User interviews with people who frequently use digital calendar interfaces.
  

3)  ANALYSIS

• Competitive Analysis of other medical scheduling platforms.
  
• Analysis of non-medical scheduling interfaces.
  

Proto-Persona Development

Data from the company and preliminary user interviews helped us form proto-personas to guide design strategy decisions.  The personas were largely based on personnel working in small independent radiology facilities, where Medical Assistants schedule patients and perform many other generalist administrative tasks as part of their job.  These personas gave us a jumping off point for approaching feature work:

1)  Clarity

Scheduling is performed quickly and often while multitasking, so information on screen must be clear and easily accessible.

2) Efficiency

Medical Assistants don't want to spend a lot of time having to schedule people, so the system should aim to minimize actions needed to complete scheduling tasks.

3) Minor Learning Curve

Scheduling is most often done by a single, trained individual, so a small learning curve for the platform interface is fine.

Lo-Fi

In Lo-Fi, we aimed to create an interface for Stroll users that feels intuitive, accessible, and quick to navigate. 

To facilitate these goals, we designed:

1) Separate modes for scheduling appointments versus adjusting facility availability

2) A side bar with buttons rather than drop down menus to accommodate our findings of limited machine quantities

3) A mini calendar and "Today" button to make navigation easier

4) New modal flows for recurring availability

Brand Styling for Hi-Fi

To stay within the current brand styling for Hi-Fi development, our team aimed to keep:

1) The color scheme

2) White space consistency

3) Familiar gray calendar background

4) Sans serif typeface

The elements we changed to facilitate a more modern, welcoming, and easy-to-use mood were:

1) Addition of rounded corners and buttons

2) Shades of gray to create hierarchy

3) Color pops and highlights to focus user actions

4) Removal of icons that don't increase comprehension

5) Establishment of primary and secondary button states to clarify feature function

Reflections

Work on revamping the scheduling feature really challenged me to design in a way that generated big impact from small changes.  With the uncertain product market fit, I was also forced to really delve into the creation of flexible components that can be adjusted based on the target audience.

I enjoyed exploring user research options for this project considering the unique intersection of commercial calendar product exposure and specialized scheduling use cases.