Project Overview
The challenge:
Create a platform to aid individuals relocated to another country in finding healthcare providers in their new, unfamiliar context.
The solution:
An initial prototype of a web application that focuses on finding care and providing the user with cultural context to build confidence and trust in a new environment. Final deliverables also included future feature development ideas and go-to-market strategy.
My role:
Led initial scoping conversations with client
Created moodboards for brand color/look & feel testing
Live-coded data during user research sessions to surface key insights and quotes and aid in post-session synthesis
Collaborated with team on prototype design iterations
Created go-to-market strategy document and high level roadmap for future considerations
Deliverables:
I created three moodboards for brand color, look & feel testing.
Go-To-Market strategy overview slide from our presentation to the client—full document not public due to NDA constraints, but available upon request.
I created a future roadmap to outline next steps—some information has been blurred due to an active NDA. Full version available upon request.
The Challenge
Our client, a Minnesota native, was relocated to Krakow, Poland with her family due to job-related changes. She and other relocated families she knows have had numerous encounters where family members required medical attention and they were forced to navigate a healthcare system that they were unfamiliar with.
For the last six years, she has been dreaming of and working on a concept for a web application that provides a comprehensive, searchable, and highly accessible public database of health and wellness provider information. Our team was tasked with helping bring her vision to life—a community-driven platform for contributing and finding information on available health and wellness resources and enabling individuals to find the care they want for themselves or their family wherever they are in the world.
The Approach
Over the course of 3.5 weeks, I worked with four other designers to create an initial prototype package for a web application that allows users to find healthcare providers and information after being relocated to an unfamiliar country. Our deliverables also included future feature development ideas and go-to-market strategy considerations.
Initial Research
To begin, we spoke with relocated individuals and those who had experiences attempting to find medical attention while in a country other than their own. We also conducted a competitive audit of 4-5 other healthcare locating web and mobile based applications to understand what currently exists and draw some inspiration for potential features.
From this research, we discovered common themes of difficulty finding reliable information, limited access to resources (information or healthcare professionals) in a user’s native language, and heightened anxiety from unfamiliar methods of care. It became clear that while we were certainly working on a way to make health and wellness information more visible and easy to find, we were also working on how to make the unknown world individuals are entering into more accessible, comfortable, and contain less risk.
We were looking to solve for both functional and emotional challenges.
Prototype Creation + Testing
With this information, we created an initial web application prototype that we tested with users to gain feedback and understand opportunities for change and iteration. In the end, the final prototype extends beyond simply finding care and is focused on providing the user with cultural context to build confidence and trust in a new environment.
The more we spoke with and heard from users, it was clear that care is contextual— expectations and reality differ greatly from city to city. To help users feel prepared and aware of the information they need to know, the main function of the web application allows users to search for their city and immediately see a brief healthcare overview that includes expectation-setting content about hospitals, specialists and medication.
This city summary also includes relevant emergency numbers, access to a medical conversion chart to assist in reducing the language barrier and finding the right prescriptions or over the counter medicine, and an expat forum where users can ask questions or browse categories of advice and support from others in a similar situation.
Next Steps
To assist our client in moving forward from here, we spent time thinking and planning for future considerations. I led our team in mapping out key go-to-market considerations, which included recommendations for platform development, strategies for site data population, further brand development, and establishing a pre-launch landing page to begin marketing efforts and continue audience building.
Due to NDA project restraints, full go-to-market strategy documentation is not publicly available, but can be provided in certain formats upon request.