Qlink App Design
Project Overview
Background
Qlink Inc. develops a healthcare platform used primarily by homecare workers and visit coordinators to manage their patients. The current platform is a desktop application but the homecare workers need a mobile app they can use while outside the office.
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Summary
Homecare workers are disconnected from the process, only getting updates when they are in the office and having to do extra work updating files. When changes are made to the schedule, they often don’t find out until they’ve already gone to the person’s house.
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As a Senior UX Designer I was responsible for all aspects of design including user interviews, user journeys, wireframes and front end coding.​
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The team consisted of a Senior UX Designer, a Product Owner and a Product Development team of 3.
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Problem Statement
How might we better connect the PSW workers to their home office while they are in the field?
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Design Process
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Target Persona
Abby Smith is a Personal Support Worker who’s tasks usually involve providing personal care such as bathing, hygiene, and helping clients with dressing, grooming, and eating.
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Abby gets her patient information while in the office, prints off the paperwork and goes out to her home visits. Each visit includes a checklist of tasks to complete, list of medications and medical supplies that may or may not need to be ordered.
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Research
We interviewed 4 coordinators and 5 Personal Support Workers to find out what tasks they were required to do in order to set up home care visits and perform them. We learned of their pain points in the current process and identified a few features which could make things easier for them to do their jobs while increasing their accuracy.
Some of the issues identified were:
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PSWs are worried the new mobile app will be difficult to use
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Coordinators are not able to send updates to PSWs out on calls
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PSWs are writing notes on paper that sometimes get lost
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Changes to care routine are not always updated at the end of the visit
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Brainstorming
We set up several brainstorming sessions with the team using whiteboards to discuss the requirements and work through some ambiguity.
The user flow was mapped out, and then a low-fidelity concept design was created to share with the stakeholders.
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Prototype Creation
Based on feedback from the stakeholders, product and development teams, we refined the solution several times and arrived at a high fidelity design using Adobe XD.
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This solution was simple, featured a list of tasks and patient data that could be updated in the office by coordinators and the information would automatically push out to the mobile app. PSWs can order medical supplies via the app right at a patient’s house and if there is no Wifi, the data stores until a sync can be performed.
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Validation
We iterated the design based on our feedback sessions, then prepared our script and prototype for usability testing.
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The solution was tested with 10 coordinators and PSWs. Feedback was gathered from these which we used to further refine the solution.
Development
After iterating the design based on feedback from our test sessions, I wrote the front end code using HTML, CSS and angular (JavaScript) in Visual Studio Code adding components from our design system. The developers then took that code and wired it to the backend, then QA was performed before release and roll out to early adopters.
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Based on some initial feedback a few minor changes were made to the design and the solution is still in use by homecare workers employed by CBI Canada.
Results
The project was met with positive feedback from clients, who’s ideas for a next phase added more value.
