Nick Dauchot
Product Designer
Made with

MEDICATION ADMINISTRATION USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN

My Role: UX Researcher and Designer

Project Duration: Two Months (2019)

Client: [confidential]

Methods: Competitive Analysis, User Interviews, Kano Analysis, Personas, Mental Model Diagramming, Story-boarding

Output: Findings and Recommendations Report

Synopsis: A large energy company approached our team with a need to refine a medical product designed for medication administration. They had a patent, wireframes, and a prototype. What they did not have is confidence that the concept would fit into the highly-regulated environments it was made for, or that the features designed into the concept were the most valuable. To help answer these questions, we employed a competitive analysis, user interviews, and a Kano analysis to help design a product tailored to the medication administration process. The result was a story and initial concept for a medical tool specifically designed for highly-regulated environments.

Problem

We have the tools, we don't have the data

Our client had a patent for a product, as well as a digital and physical prototype. What they lacked was confidence that the product would meet the needs of it's users.
Approach
Image is intentionally blurred

Image is intentionally blurred

Competitive Analysis

The first step was to understand the competitive landscape by identifying products that were similar to our client's concept. This helped our team gather an early understanding of potential opportunities and core "must-have" feature-sets.

Some of the data from the analysis included:

  • Product Benefits
  • Mobile App Support
  • Back-end/Database Support
  • Primary Instructions
  • Security Benefits
  • Data Benefits
  • Existing Patents



no-mockup
no-mockup

User Interviews

My next step was to take a human-centered approach medical professionals in a regulated environment so that we could understand their needs, motivations, behaviors, attitudes, frustrations, goals, and unique/shared processes. These were 45-minute non-directed interviews.

Some of our goals included:

  • Understand the unique processes of the professionals
  • Understand what tools were used in the environment (both hardware and software)
  • Identify shortcuts and workarounds
MEDICATION ADHERENCE SYSTEM

Kano Analysis



Following the user interviews, we conducted a Kano Analysis. The purpose of this analysis was to help prioritize the feature-set outlined in our client's patent. Participants were asked about a series of mutually exclusive features which were scored based on their response.


Questions Included:

  • A functional question
  • A dysfunctional question
  • A self-rated importance Likert scale
Image is intentionally blurry

Image is intentionally blurry

Mental Model Diagram

All of the data from the interviews was transcribed and coded onto a document. The document was transformed into a Mental Model diagram which helped bring patterns throughout the interviews to the surface. These patterns were organized into a consolidated report.

Sections of the report included:

  • Creative Constraints
  • Prioritized Features
  • Experience Principles
For confidentiality purposes, I've only included a photo of one of the personas

For confidentiality purposes, I've only included a photo of one of the personas

Personas

Next, I created two primary personas based upon the patterns identified through the Mental Model Diagram and interviews. These personas were to be used later when designing the storyboard/visualization for the product.

The two personas included:

  1. Kara - Medical Supervisor
  2. Lisa - Medical Aide
MEDICATION ADHERENCE SYSTEM

Experience Mapping

After creating an experience framework identified through all of the data, I created high-fidelity experience maps designed to inform the experience narratives/final deliverables.

Experience Maps contained the following content

  • Breakdown of tasks throughout the medication administration process
  • Thoughts and feelings associated with each step
  • Goals associated with each steps
  • Pain points and workarounds noted at each step
Result

Coming Soon

Lessons

Lessons Learned

  • Make sure documents and video are shared with remote team members. We got caught up a couple times when stakeholders and team members were not able to communicate with the greater team. Tools like Slack and Google Drive are helpful for bridging communication gaps.


  • There's no need to automatically transcribe interviews if it means poor quality. Using the right transcription software can save a ton of time, but not if it means  that it jeopardizes the validity of the data.


  • When working with a feature-set in a Kano Analysis that is almost entirely desirable, even the slightest nuance can make a difference. Furthermore, the structure of the Kano is incredibly important. A good lead-in question and proper explanation of vocabulary can seriously impact the validity of the data.