HealthHorizon
Improving America’s relationship with healthcare, one download at a time
The Problem
The problem at the heart of HealthHorizon is the widespread underutilization of preventive healthcare services in America. Less than 15% of adults over 35 were receiving all recommended clinical services in 2015, with this percentage continuing to decline. The challenge is to engage Americans—especially those who aren’t already proactive about their health—by making preventive care more accessible, understandable, and convenient.
Role: UI/UX Designer
Process: Competitive Analysis, User Interviews, Affinity Mapping, Persona Creation, Site Mapping, Branding, Wireframing, Mockups, Prototyping
Tools: Figma, Miro
Research
Since I chose such a huge problem to address, I had to rely on national studies, scientific articles, and medical journals in order to get a "big picture" understanding. If I wanted to design for a user base that consisted of the entire adult population of the United States, it was essential I use national scale research to understand how this issue affected everyone, not just the users in my own limited sphere. I set out to answer a couple key questions:
What is in the way of Americans accessing preventive care?
I researched which demographics were least likely to access services, what factors increased the likelihood of accessing services, what services were more utilized than others, and more. Across all my secondary research, the recurring themes as to why Americans were not accessing preventive services were:
What solutions already exist?
There were many solid tools for addressing some of these issues, but none that offered a holistic approach. Zocdoc, for example, is good for finding providers, but it has no way to reach users who are not already seeking out care. My design would be most effective if I capitalized on this hole in the market.
User Interviews
The interviews confirmed the pain points I had found in my initial secondary research, but the most valuable result was the recontextualization of these vague themes to an individual-level perspective. Instead of “things are too expensive, I can't afford them,” I heard, “being unsure what things cost is really worrying,” or “it’s scary to think about getting stuck with a big bill if you end up agreeing to anything out of your insurance network.”
I cannot tell pharmaceutical companies or hospitals to lower prices, but I could certainly demystify cost and insurance practices to alleviate user fears. The interviews revealed similar insights about the other large themes discovered in the secondary research. Things like cost and scheduling were still large barriers, but they were not unapproachable monoliths.
Defining the User
It was time to understand who the person I was serving really was. I used empathy mapping and persona creation to come to understand them. Health-Conscious Hannah is a young professional with a lot on her plate. She would like to feel more confident about how she maintains her health, but it is simply not a priority when juggling work, friends, school, bills, family, and other responsibilities. If preventive healthcare is going to have a place in her schedule, it needs to be as easy and convenient as possible and should feel productive.
Understanding Hannah was key to my design. I came back to her repeatedly during the process to remind myself that preventative care was not necessarily an exciting thing for her. Anything I wanted her to engage with had to be streamlined into a productive process that was respectful of her time.
This persona specifically eliminated some of my initial design ideas, such as a form of gamification, or some sort of "health buddy" you took care of by taking care of yourself. Asking someone to spend time and money preventing health problems they don't even have yet is already a big ask, I needed to respect her priorities and help her get this done efficiently so she could go spend her time on things she truly cares about.
The Solution
Moving into initial ideation, my main concerns were:
My solution centers on three core features: personalized care plans, robust provider search, and seamless appointment scheduling.
New users answer a questionnaire, which generates an adjustable care plan. To motivate engagement, the app offers incentives like insurance discounts or product coupons (from partner companies that benefit from more people caring about their health) for completing care plan recommendations. The plan gives users a simple starting point to begin their health management, takes the hassle out of researching services, offers educational resources, and provides incentives beyond the user’s own wellbeing.
Once users have their plan, the provider search lets them find healthcare providers. Detailed filters, verified reviews, and information on provider location and expertise help users feel confident in their choice. After finding a doctor, in-app scheduling streamlines the process by syncing with the user’s calendar and sending reminders, reducing the mental load of managing appointments.
The app focuses on reducing friction, making healthcare accessible, transparent, and efficient. This solution aims to not only make preventive care more convenient but to foster a deeper understanding and appreciation for users' health.
Wireframing
I defined my red routes (scheduling an appointment, adding a health provider to your team) and created a site map. This allowed me to organize branching paths, account for edge cases, and keep track of what data needed to be tracked so that I could ensure a smoother handoff to any potential future dev team. I converted these organized features into my low fidelity wireframes.
Branding
I decided on the name HealthHorizon, to evoke the idea of looking ahead. The branding is warm, approachable, and professional. The bright orange embodies energy, positivity, and motivation, while referencing back to the rising sun logo.
I felt it was important to avoid a sterile, clinical feel. The overall tone strikes a balance between friendliness and trustworthy competence. I also made sure to test my palette rigorously for accessibility and sufficient contrast ratios.
High Fidelity Prototype
I visually developed and prototyped my wireframes to take back to my users for testing.
Due to time restraints associated with this project, I only visually designed my red routes. The functionality of the whole tool was accounted for in earlier design stages, but my prototype only allows users to demo scheduling an appointment and adding a provider to their health team.
The Results
Finally, I took my design back to my users. All users were able to easily complete the tasks of finding providers and scheduling appointments. In the initial round of user interviews, I had asked participants to rate the difficulty of scheduling preventive care appointments on a scale of 1 to 10. In the final round of testing, I asked them to rate the difficulty again—this time, after using the tool. The average difficulty went from a 7.8, down to a 3.5 average. In addition, 100% of users indicated that HealthHorizon made them significantly more motivated to engage with preventative care.
We must take these results with a certain grain of salt as this is not a market tested product and people’s actions often differ from their words, but from what was recorded, user attitudes were markedly improved.
Final Design and Thoughts
The culmination of my research, synthesis, designing and refining is to the right. I learned a lot from this project, and overall, I feel I have created a successful design that prioritizes my user from beginning to end.
In terms of what I would do differently next time, I would choose better red routes to flesh out. I focused on the routes that I did (scheduling appointments, adding providers to user health teams), because they were the areas that users would traverse most frequently. There is merit to that reasoning, but in retrospect I would have included management of the user's care plan, or the redemption of reward points, as these elements are what makes my solution unique, and currently they are only hinted at.
I would love to create a fully functional prototype of this app, including those features as well as implementing the provider side interface. I am truly passionate about this problem space and would love to flesh out a tool that serves a greater purpose than making for a nice case study.
Thank you for reading all the way to the end of this story, and please feel free to click through the rest of my case studies further down or reach out to me directly!