InformationPlay

Exploring motivation strategies for the home healthcare of diabetic patients.

ROLE
User Interface Designer, responsible for the visual and interaction design. Collaborated closely with a user researcher and the product development team throughout the project.

PROBLEM
Motiva is an interactive healthcare platform that connects patients with chronic conditions to their healthcare providers, via the home television and a broadband internet connection. The project focused on the design and testing of new motivational concepts for diabetes management and lifestyle, as well as usability improvements for a future Motiva product release.

PROCESS
The project began with an analysis of the current state of the software and a best practice audit to refine design and project requirements. Sketches and PDF interaction prototypes were created to evaluate the potential concepts with the client team. While concepts were being developed, the team began the planning and recruiting for the user testing sessions. Once concepts had been selected for testing, high fidelity Flash prototypes were created for user testing.

Concept testing was held in a usability lab in Boston, with 11 diabetic patients. Based on test findings, the interaction and visual design was iterated and finalized. Specifications and final assets were created and iterated with the client team.

RESULTS
Based on the concept testing findings, the primary design change was to create a logbook for capturing, tracking, and analyzing daily physiological readings. The logbook provided a single location for users to manage and better understand they’re health status. Usability improvements included reducing the color palette, minimizing navigation hierarchy, and providing clear feedback to the patients. Numerous short term motivation strategies were integrated into the user interface to support progressive behavior modification over time.