Cutting the Language Gap: iUnderstand
My Role
UX Designer
Timeframe
2 weeks
Tools
Miro
Marvel
Balsamic
Team
Individual
Overview📚
Problem
There are roughly 6,500 languages spoken in the world today. As the pandemic continues, the needs of healthcare are multiplied. Unfortunately, many of the nuances of medical terminology are lost on native languages. Finding appropriate care, insurance, speaking with medical teams, and understanding diagnoses and treatments are far from standard.
Solution
Look for innovative ways to help people mitigate language gaps without dependency on spoken language.
The Process
Discovery & Research🔎
User Interviews
5 interviews|Non-Native English Speakers|Virtual
Based on the user interviews, I created an affinity map to organize specific quotes from the interview into comprehensible patterns and themes.
Synthesis & Design Strategy✏️
Persona
Based on my findings from the affinity map, I created a persona to understand underlying needs and goals of users to create more useful experiences.
Through this process, I discovered the following:
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Sometimes it's difficult to follow along with the doctors because of the big medical terms, therefore users have to spend extra time with the healthcare professionals to reiterate their diagnosis.
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Users want to better digest the specifics of their diagnosis in a simple and convenient way in order to get a full understanding of their health.
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Users are often anxious during their doctor visits because they fear verbal miscommunication.
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Visual learning is their preferred learning method.
Problem Statement
Patients have to spend extra time clarifying their diagnosis with their medical professionals. Specifically, patients with limited English proficiency have trouble fully understanding the conversations regarding their health and worry about miscommunication during the process. How might we allow non-native English speakers to have a more comfortable experience at the hospital/clinic?
Hypothesis
If we allow patients to record their medical professionals (with their permission) then they could break down their conversations into understandable videos and images because patients want to fully comprehend their health condition.
User Flows
I created a user flow to illustrate the potential steps the user has to take to fulfill the task.
Placement & Layout Design📏
Sketches
Using the user flow as a guide, I sketched a wireframe which is a low cost, low risk way to visually communicate ideas.
Execution🗓
Paper Prototyping on Marvel
After sketching the wireframes, I proceeded to create a low-fidelity paper prototype on Marvel. I was then able to share this prototype with my peers through Miro to get valuable feedback and suggestions.
Feedback & Suggestions:
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Consider adding back buttons
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Consider adding re-record options to account for user error
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How might someone who might not read English or another supported language be able to get from the start to record feature?
Iterations on Invision
Using the feedback and suggestions, I iterated and simplified my design. I added more icons and removed some buttons that may have caused confusion to make it more accessible and intuitive for users that might not read English or another supported language. Additionally, I added back buttons and a re-record feature to reduce possible errors.
This is a short video of the iterated version of iUnderstand. Please free free to watch or interact with a clickable prototype here!
More Iterations on Balsamiq
Upon iterating on my paper prototype, I created another low-fidelity prototype on Balsamiq where I conducted a heuristic evaluation on myself. The heuristic evaluation was a quick and helpful way to surface concerns, errors and issues to iterate on. Due to concerns with learnability, efficiency, memorability, error management and satisfaction, I edited the buttons on the record screens and added a back option.
Final Design✨
Introducing iUnderstand
"iUnderstand" is a mobile application designed for patients to be able record and break down their stressful doctor conversations into digestible visuals including videos and pictures. In order to reduce anxiety and the time needed to reiterate, patients could conveniently record their discussion and select any medical terms that may cause confusion. This application directs users to the specific medical term to explain with universal imagery anyone could understand.
Conclusion🙂
This project was a valuable learning experience where I could use the UX design process to solve for a ongoing global problem. Next steps include solving to make the application more relevant to global users, doing a competitive analysis, and conducting further user testing to iterate upon in order to create a high fidelity mockup.