UI/UX design, Product Design
How could we help children and their parents to have better service experiences at hospitals?
China is a country with a very high urban population density and few children's hospitals, therefore good order is especially important in the management system. In this context, how can we help child patients and family members reduce physical exertion and cross infection, while making the hospital more efficient and orderly?
Duration
6 February - 23 March, 2020 (8 weeks)
Tools
Adobe XD, Sketch, Illustrator, Adobe Dimension
Category
Product Design
Goal
Digital future concept
The root of the problem
A variety of online services are now exploding in China. Including online hospital services, online triage appointments are also widely used. Although online appointments and triages make our lives more convenient, there are still a lot of disorderly phenomena when seeing a doctor in the hospital. For example, the auxiliary diagnosis requires patients to register and queue again, but the examination room of the auxiliary diagnosis will be very scattered. Especially in children's hospitals, problems such as inconvenient patient consultation, irrational hospital order, and low efficiency are even more significant. China is a country with a very high urban population density and few children's hospitals, therefore good order is especially important in the management system. In this context:
How can we help child patients and family members reduce physical exertion and cross infection through mobile service, while making the hospital more efficient and orderly?
Research
For this project, our research will focuses on the current paediatric patient experience and the management system of Chinese hospitals.
Intensions for the research
reduce physical exertion and cross infection
reduce anxiety, avoid hassles, improve efficiency
Needs for data and information
target audience
journey of current patients experience
facts of current online services
First of all, we investigated the hospital management structure and current patient consultation process.
Hospital management structure
Current Online Service
Current patient consultation process
Data of children’s hospital outpatients and inpatients
We selected 12 most comprehensive regional children's hospital as research objects.
From the data, we can perceive that the number of outpatient visits of large general children's hospitals across China is more than 1,000,000 each year, and 7 of the 12 hospitals have at least 35,000 inpatients per year.
Most Common Childhood illness in China
Kids age 3 and under
Common Cold (fever, congestion, coughing, a sore throat)
RSV (Respiratory syncytial virus affects the lungs)
Roseola (High fever, congestion, coughing, a patchy rash on the chest and spreads)
Gastroenteritis (Vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain)
Hand-foot-mouth disease (painful sores in the mouth and throat)
Young kids
Step Throat (throat pain, trouble swallowing)
Influenza (body aches and chills, headache, sore throat, cough, vomiting, diarrhea)
Pinkeye (redness, yellowish discharge, crusty eye)
Pinworms (poor hygiene for the prevalence of tiny parasites)
By investigating the most common outpatient diseases for children, we found that all of the above conditions require auxiliary examinations to help doctors make a secondary diagnosis. Among outpatients, the possibility of patients making second registration and second queue are high beyond our expectations.
Secondary Research & Insights
The primary user group of our project is parents who take care of children. Imagine that you go to work early every day and learn that your child is sick when you are busy and unprepared for work, or a child who has been caring for a days however suddenly gets worse. In this case, your heart must be anxious, tried, depressed and worried. We decided to dig deeper into the parent population to understand the process and possible pain points when parents take their child to the doctor.
About Source
Through experience sharing in Chinese online forums (Zhihu), and two WeChat interviews from experienced parents, we sorted out the emotional and real-time needs of patients and parents through the timeline. Through these needs, we can understand and summarize the patient and parent’s demands indifferent stages. Through the collection of information, our suspicions have been formalized.
Here are some words that often appear:
Tired, stressed, exhausted, mentally and physically demand.
Affinity diagram
Persona
Type 1
The first is a group of parents who are more likely to panic when encountering things, without specific plans.
Type2
The second type is the group of parents who are more calm when encountering things and like to analyze information to make specific plans.
User Journey Map
Next we have to define the problem we are about to face. What do our users really need? When will it be useful to them?
Opportunities
We can see that the use of mobile phone applications by Chinese parents in the 80s generation is very high and skilled, and there is no difficulty in using mobile phones while caring for children in hospitals. After the concept and prototype stages of the above process, I finally decided the following features as the main components of the App:
1. Online Triage, book appointment & make reservation
Online registration / reservation Replaces traditional registration with fast, convenient, flexible, and free of geographical restrictions. The most important thing is that you do n’t have to go to the hospital to queue for registration.
From the parents' perspective, using an app may have several purposes:
For first visit patients & parents
I want to register for my kid.
We would like to consult a doctor for related diseases.
We want to see a doctor or specialist.
Existing users who have already visited the hospital
My kids have been seeing a doctor in the same hospital all the time. Can I see my kid’s examination report and previous medical records on my related account on the hospital APP?
Can the attending doctor follow up my child’s condition on the app?
I want to learn some medical knowledge.
My kid's illness requires long-term medication control. Now I have to go to the hospital regularly to get medicines. Can I go online and prescribe directly, send medicines directly to home, or buy medicines by electronic prescription at a nearby clinic?
2. Schedule
Show daily and monthly schedule, and each appointment shows the information the patient needs most：
If patients already made an appointment.
Can you see how many people are waiting?
Unfamiliar with the hospital environment, can the APP navigate?
I don't know which department my child should go to?
3. Community
A harmonious community environment can allowed patients or parents find similar experiences according to their own needs, and the community could be a venting channel to share their emotions and experiences. An important source of information for many novice parents
4. Bill & Payments
Online payment is connected 24 hours a day, and consumers can pay through the Internet anytime, anywhere. Traditional payment methods are limited by time and space, and it is difficult to meet the habitual needs of many users in terms of time and space. The hospital made full use of the relevant advantages of the Internet, which greatly improved the medical efficiency, which alleviated the delay of patients in long queues.
5. Profile
Record patient information and remind patients based on medication.
From the parents' perspective, using an app may have several purposes:
I don’t know much about drug usage. Can this app help me supervise my children taking medicine?
Could app record my kid’s daily health condition?
App Map
Wireframe
Visual Identity
Before taking a deeper visual exploration, we need to know what does this product want users to feel? What message do we want to convey and what factors are we avoiding? What energy do we want to bring to users beyond functional content? How to help users relieve anxiety?
Goal
Through the research above, we understand that parents are anxious, flustered and frustrated when their child is sick. While having the visual representativeness of Chinese children's hospital, a refreshing, decompressing and warm interface design is what users need.
Keywords：refreshing, decompressing , warm
Visual research
Then I began to look for visual elements and began to learn more about places related to children: such as kindergartens, playgrounds, children's toy towns and clothing stores. Looking for visual elements that have a sense of security and children's favourite, and based on the captured colours, I chose Helvetica, which can make content prominent, so that parents can quickly capture the urgently needed information when they are worried.
Style
We decided on implementing Neumorphism (soft UI) style, which brought a refreshing, quiet and clean feel to the user.
It adds 3D feel for real buttons, which you can reach out and press. All of that is achieved by a visual representation with icons. it is extremely suitable for interfaces with small buttons that mimic real-life objects.
Color Palette
Based on the existing color principles, we have chosen some cute and interesting colors that children also like very much. For example pink, blue and orange.
Background color
Text color
Typeface
User Interface Design
Dashboard Page
New Symptom Page
Schedule Page
Bill & Payment Page
Profile Page
