Brief: Digital Design for
Patient Empowerment
Digital Health Technology application for adolescents with obesity
Role : UI/UX Designer
Time Frame : 2 months
Software : Figma, Photoshop
Design Thinking
Double Diamond Research Method
01 - Discover
Problem Identification
Following extensive study, obesity/overweight in teens was highlighted as one of the main challenges in this generation in the given brief, digital design for patient empowerment.
340
million adolescents were obese/overweight in 2016. (WHO, 2016)
3+
million individuals died as a result of obesity in 2010.
(Ng et al., 2014)
Project Aim
The aim of this project is to use digital health technology to provide an appropriate solution to help adoescents overcome obesity and become a digitally engaged patient.
02 - Define
In this phase, the problem outlined is defined and a solution is ideated. Further an initial interview was conducted with a healthcare professional and three students who currently use digital health technology (DHT) to reduce weight. This is done to understand the reasons for decline in the use of DHT to reduce weight amongst people.
Based on the themes, an objective for the project was created.
After conducting a thematic analysis of the interview, a theme that was constantly repeated was noted down.
Objectives
1) Designing a Digital Fitness Application for adolescents with obesity/overweight.
2) Examining the effectiveness of Gamification features like Rewards & Recognition and its role as a motivation factor.
3) Assessing the role of the Community feature and its influence in adolescents and adults.
4) Evaluate the user experience and satisfaction levels using a digital fitness programme that includes elements like calorie tracking and fitness data monitoring on a single platform.
5) Understand whether DHT acts as a tool in reducing weight among young adolescents with obesity and empowers the patient.
03 - Develop
Design Process
User Persona
The user persona shown here is David, a 17-year-old high school student from the United Kingdom who has suffered from obesity his whole life and is attempting to lose weight with the help of digital fitness technology. Alex is a fictitious character created based on preliminary user research, interviews, and a survey. He represents the entire target audience of obese/overweight users.
Information Architecture
Information architecture refers to the path taken by a typical user on a website or app to complete a task. It depicts how users navigate around the app, from the welcome page through the logout screen.
Low Fidelity Designs
The low-fidelity design is the application's basic drawing and lacks any colours or images; it allows you to brainstorm many ideas and is typically cost-effective, affordable, and saves a lot of time.
Colour Palette and Typeface
High Fidelity Mockups
Prototype Video
User Testing
The User testing was conducted with 25 participants who either had obesity in the past and currently over the age of 18, people who use any sort of digital health technology to reduce weight.
The survey results are as follows:
The data collected shows that the users meet Nielson's 10 heuristics principles and adherence factors, and they find the application to be clean, efficient, usable, understand its purpose, and navigate through it easily; however, the two proposed features, rewards and community, have received mixed reviews. On the one hand, the community element has gotten positive feedback, however, the rewards factor has only received a 50% chance of being a motivator.
Participants' feedback and opinions
04 - Deliver
In this stage the designs are finalized and the app is created and tested out with few more participants before it is launched.