Jax Wechsler

Background:

The George Institute of Global Health approached Jax Wechsler (Sticky Design Studio) to support them with the design of a mobile health app to support behaviour change for patients at risk of cardio-vascular disease and those that have had an episode.

The client consisted of a group of researchers exploring technical assisted cardio-vascular health related behaviour change.  The development of this tool, funded by the Australian government, informed their study about supporting health consumer behaviour change through technology.

The group has already launched a decision support software application designed for medical doctors (general practitioners) called Health Tracker. The CONNECT app was designed to be used by health consumers, and its database linked with patient eHealth records and Health Tracker.

The brief:

Through a user-centred design approach, support the George Institute to design a useable and useful mobile health app that is accessible to people of low socio-economic backgrounds and limited technical literacy.

Approach:

There were three phases for this project

1. Desk research : including competitor review, view of trends in technology inspired health behaviour change, review of academic literature and popular literature about behaviour change.

2. Design research : workshops were held with George Institute researchers to extract related knowledge about the target patients and explicate their assumptions. Qualitative research was conducted with patients including mapping workshops with families, one on one interviews and diary studies/cultural probes. Pain-points and opportunities were presented to the client and the research insight insights, personas and maps were delivered in a report. We additionally explored the patient roll-out of the app, communication and training needs.

3. Interaction design : This phase kicked off with a co-design workshop with patients. At this stage we knew what features the tool should have (e.g. exercise tracking). During this phase we focused on the design of the associated application interactions. Prototypes of varying fidelity were designed and validated with patients over a three week period.

Deliverables:

i. A series of research derived personas

ii. A research report documenting insights from design research activities

iii. Customer journey maps representing the journey of patients at risk and those who have had an episode

iv. Wire-frames that were tested with users and refined over a three week period

Project role:

This was my project and I took responsibility for project and client management. A design researcher supported me for the design research activities. I was responsible for the interaction design activities, including designing the co-design and usability testing activities.