Connect is a project by Masters students in Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon University. Team Bond is working with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) to motivate behavior change in hypertension patients.
About the Project
About the Project
The Technology Development Center (TDC) of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) tasked us with finding a designed solution that would strengthen the collaboration between patients and their physicians, create a deeper engagement with the healthy system as a whole, and improve the outcomes of patients. We formulated the following hunt statement to focus our research efforts in the space.
Motivate hypertension patients toward healthy lifestyle change by improving the partnership with their clinicians.
This project was completed in two phases: the discovery phase and the design phase. The goal of the discovery phase was to understand the current healthcare domain. Methods that were employed during this phase include literature reviews, guerrilla interviews, directed story-telling sessions with patients and clinicians, and cultural probes. Insights gained from a thorough understanding of the healthcare domain drove the solution that was designed in phase two, the design phase of the project.
Domain Analysis
Domain Analysis
Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change
The Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change is the context for our exploration. We are concerned with moving patients from pre-contemplation and contemplation, to action and maintenance. In addition, we are focused on getting patients who have relapsed to return to action or maintenance.
Literature Review
We reviewed over 50 literature articles in the healthcare and behavior change domains. We gained insights into these areas: factors influencing behavior change, strategies for presenting information, the patient-clinician relationship and design guidelines for the healthcare context.
Competitive Analysis
We examined over 30 companies to discover the strategies they employed to motivate long-term healthy behaviors. We focused on companies that motivated lifestyle and diet change, as well as companies that created communication tools to facilitate patient-clinician communication.
Discovery Methods
Discovery Methods
We used these methods to gather raw data, become experts within the space, and understand the lives of patients and clinicians.
Guerilla Interviews
- Discover people’s general health habits
- Probe for motivating factors
- Learn about the role of their clinicians in their lives
Expert Interviews
- Behavioral change experts from Social and Decision Sciences at CMU
- Behavioral change principles
- Motivation strategies and ideas
Clinician Interviews
- Identify responsibilities of various clinicians
- How different stakeholders influence each other
- Behavior change strategies that are most successful
- The biggest challenges to behavior change adoption and maintenance
Diary Studies
- A week-long diary study to understand life context of participants
- Participants responded to questions about daily stresses, favorite activities, and life around food.
- Responses were captured in writing, photos and drawings
Home Visits
- Visited homes of 5 diary study participants
- Deepened empathy for our participants and provided inspiration
- Provided context of their living environment and options for healthy choices
- Tagging activity to label “my food” and “not my food”
Directed Storytelling
- 23 Patient-Directed Storytellings
- Hypertension diagnosis to present day
- Gauge patient awareness of their own health
- What triggers patients to relapse?
- Understand the influence of social factors
- Relationship with clinicians
Data Synthesis
Data Synthesis
We used the following techniques to consolidate our data into useful information. This information then led to our key findings and insights.
Affinity Diagramming
As we shared every patient and clinician interview with the team, we took notes down on post-its. We grouped more than 600 post-its into key ideas. These key ideas then led to higher-level ideas, which developed into our key findings.
Cultural Models
The cultural model portrays the influencers between patients, different types of clinicians, the hospital, and family. This revealed conflicting priorities and influences throughout the patient’s world.
Experience Maps
We used this service design technique to empathize with the personas throughout their healthcare journeys. We visually plotted what patients think, do, and feel at each step from pre-diagnosis to treatment.
Personas
We developed two personas. One persona, Mary, is someone who has maintained healthy behavior change in the past, but now she relapsed into more unhealthy behaviors. The other persona, Jeff, is unaware of how his actions affect his health. He is in the pre-contemplation stage.
Visions
We used the insights gathered from our data synthesis methods to inform our design ideas for a patient-facing tool encouraging healthy lifestyles. For the initial round of these visions, we came up with three. We conducted a workshop with our client to get their feedback and generate more design ideas.
Design Process
Design Process
Taking our key findings from the discovery phase, we have designed a service within a mobile app that results in healthy lifestyle change by hypertension patients. We validated the stickiness and patient engagement of this service through iterative design cycles with user testing.
Ideation
Brainstorming
We generated more than 50 ideas internally and through a client workshop. We grouped the 50⁺ ideas and consolidated them into 12 key themes.
Storyboards
We tested these ideas through storyboards with users. From our user testing with users, we narrowed down from 12 to 2 ideas.
Business Validation
We presented the two ideas to our client and they selected the one that provided greater business value.
Design Refinement
Paper Prototype
Quick sketch of our idea on paper to validate general service and interface hunches.
Experience Prototype
We performed a wizard of oz test of our proposed solution to validate the service.
Interactive Prototype
Interactive wireframes with clickable areas to mimic functionality. This prototype tested interface usability.
Core Service App
Refined visual interface with only core functionality. This tested both the service in-situ and interface usability.
Moving Forward
Moving Forward
Our service received strong, enthusiastic responses from patients and resulted in high engagement. Over the 3-day user tests, patients began to make healthy lifestyle changes. We have passed our solution to UPMC for further development and pilot testing. Our solution has the potential to change patient-clinician relationships and drive patients to be in-control of their hypertension.
The Bond Team
Chin Wei Wong
UX Design Lead
Chin Wei has a background in Science (Chemistry) and has worked in the Mixed Reality Lab as a research assistant as well as an interaction designer in a digital marketing agency. He has a passion for simplifying complexity in a way that is both useful and meaningful to people.
Jennifer Morioka
Project Lead
Jennifer has a background in anthropology and fine arts. She has eight years of industry experience as a visual designer working on marketing and product teams. She is interested in the intersection of design, technology and entrepreneurship and how the effective cross-section of all three can be used to develop innovative products or services to ameliorate meaningful problems in health care.
Ayo Olubeko
Technical Lead
Ayo Olubeko has a background in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. He is a futurist at heart fascinated by the increasingly hybrid physical-digital world we live in. Tactile and haptic interfaces, smart objects, augmented reality -- he aims to solve human problems by utilizing the unique capabilities of people, the physical world, and the digital world.
Kate Vogt
UX Research Lead
Kate has a background in Computer Information Systems and industry experience as a Systems Analyst. With a passion for effective user interactions, she brings experience in user research and some design. With every product, her goal is to develop something that brings out the best in the people interacting with it.
Yu Ma
Interaction Design Lead
Yu Ma has a background in Computer Science and experience in computer graphics and human computer interactions. She likes to create and improve the interactions between products and users. She is also interested in engaging herself in the interactions as well as communications among design, development and management of products and services.
