How to integrate ALMA into the daily work of healthcare workers
Overview
Our project goal was to figure out why the users (the healthcare workers) did not interact with the digital product ALMA as desired and further find a solution based on the insights .
My Role:
UX-Researcher, UX-designer, Prototyping, Wireframing, Workshop facilitation
Team:
3 UX-designers (me, another intern and our supervisor.
Although, we got a lot of input from the developers and the client manager for our research and solution.
Project Date:
1 April - 31 May 2024 (2 months)
And who is ALMA?
’Our digital colleague ALMA uses the power of existing journal documentation. She analyzes medical record data and helps you make decisions. It increases patient safety and efficiency, while improving your work environment.’’
Alma appears as a smaller window in the down right corner on the computer screen and acts as a helping tool for health care workers.
Project Summary
Background
The company had issues with implementing the product ALMA and actually make the users interact with their digital product.
They therefore wanted to create this case for us to be able to provide a fresh outlook on the issue, hence our problem statement was:
Why are users not interacting with ALMA as desired?
Our Goal
To understand the users painpoints and needs and to develop and present a solution based on the insights.
Why is it important?
The company wants the users to explore ALMAs full functionality to increase patient safety, time efficiency and create a feeling of delight.
The Design Process
To explore the objective of the brief and to structure our creative process to come up with a solution, we chose the design process model Double Diamond.
The results
We created two different solution ideas, one more practically viable and one more visionary for the future, and presented our insights and solution to the company.
The outcome
The company was satisfied with our job and implemented some changes to their design after some of our recommendations and believe that it made ALMA even more appealing and intuitive.
The Process
To explore the objective of the brief and to structure our creative process and our way of working to come up with a solution, we chose the design process model Double Diamond. We started with research understanding the why and defining the how and then explored the possible solutions.
Gather Insights
To fully understand ALMA and its users, we applied a variety of research methods:
Interviews with doctors using ALMA to gain qualitative insights of their experiences.
Analysing old surveys to gather quantitative data on user needs and common pain points.
Heuristic evaluation to identify usability issues.
Analyses of previous research in Glean.ly to build on the exisiting knowledge.
Workshops with the Blackwell team to define the core problem.
These methods provided a comprehensive understanding of both user needs and product performance, guiding our design decisions.
Most common pain points:
Lack of understanding
Flaws in functionality
Resistance towards a new system
Negative attitude against the UI/IxD.
The Challanges:
One of the biggest challenges for us was to prioritize the user needs and at the same time take business requirements into consideration.
Another challenge was to know what was technically possible to create in ALMA. Since the current journal system is very old and robust, we had some constraints to take into consideration due to law regulations and patient security.
But with challenge comes opportunity!
Ideation
After gathering insights we moved on to using different methods and tools to come up with ideas, ideas and again ideas.
To prioritize ideas for further development, we created a mind map to visualize all potential solutions. We categorized ideas based on feasibility: green for "possible to create" and red for "challenging to create". Interestingly, all the green ideas shared a common theme - they were focused on UI or interaction design (IxD). This insight helped us narrow down our focus and move forward with the most feasible solutions.
As the company grows, the number of users grows, which means that making ALMA more intuitively, appealing and scalable is important to:
Create a user-friendly workflow to maintain the level of interactivity.
Meet the pain points and needs.
To catch new employees who missed the learning introductions presented at the hospital when ALMA was first installed, but also to learn how to use ALMA without having to spend too much time.
Minimize the learning costs for business KPIs. As a new client (a unit at a hospital for example), the employees at the hospital get two introductions on-sight by Blackwell Medtech to learn how to use ALMA. Since the company is growing they will not be able to have this many introductions and follow-up meetings to stay on the budget.
ALMA is not intuitive enough —> Change the interface
The final solution
The Outcome
What was successful?
The rest of the company appreciated our work and implemented some changes to their design after some of our recommendations and believe that it made ALMA even more appealing and intuitive. The teamwork worked great due to trust in each other. Frequent communication and giving support throughout the process made it possible for creative and diligent flow.
What could’ve been done differently?
If we had more time, I would have conducted user testing on the prototype and developed a hi-fi version. Additional user testing would have provided valuable feedback, helping to refine the design further and ensure a more accurate and user-centered solution.