NOVA Health App
End-to-end mobile app design to bridge women’s overall health well-being and awareness.
Background
Overview
Globally, women face diverse health concerns that can affect their overall lifespan and health wellness. One of the best approaches is to improve awareness and resources and lead preventative health measures. I took the initiative to design NOVA, a platform for women to connect, gain awareness, and share resources on health topics.
As the sole designer for this project, I was responsible for conducting user research, brand design, creating wireframes, and usability testing.
Problem
The Worldwide Health Organization (WHO) recognizes the limited resources and access to women’s health in many countries. From 2000 – 2015, the percentage of women who see a gynecologist significantly declined from 45% – 38% in the USA, with breast cancer being the 2nd leading cause of cancer death amongst women.
According to the American Cancer Society, an average of one out of eight women will develop breast cancer during their lifetime. To promote a healthy community and prevent misleading information, it is essential the platform can be supported by health professionals to bridge any gaps with users.
Objective
Craft a platform to provide a modern, engaging, and personalized experience with supported content by health professionals.
Research
I researched popular health apps in the market and interviewed users to understand their motivation and needs for using health apps. With market research, competitor analysis, and user interviews, I was able to summarize my findings.
I like my app to be able to focus and do one thing well over an app that have too many focuses and make things complicated
User Interview Participant
1.
It is not only about menstruation
Current apps focus primarily on tracking menstrual cycles, but cycles and symptoms are not the only concerns users have.
2.
Worth the money
Many apps separate content and access on free and paid plans. Paid plan users recall a negative experience where the content was not worth the price.
3.
Personalized content
A common concern with users is the overwhelming content that is irrelevant to their needs. The inability to control the content shared was frustrating that led to users deleting the app.
4.
Simplify the information
Users come from different backgrounds and awareness. Some find the information too complex and confusing to understand. They prefer the content to be simplified and easy to digest.
Define
Analyze
I organized the research findings to pinpoint the issues users are experiencing. The market is busy with many new and existing menstrual applications, which is not the priority for this health application. We went to define our users and lead to ideation.
Sketches
The purpose of the app is to create a solution different from apps in the market. Narrowing down some ideas, I sketched out the main features that I believe are essential followed by high-fidelity frames. This approach helped keep priorities in mind.
Style Guide
Branding
I created a style guide and added UI style elements to ensure there is consistent styling before creating high-fidelity frames.
High-Fidelity Designs
Solutions
Using the style guide and sketches, I created high-fidelity frames to communicate early features for usability tests. These features were designed to tackle issues identified during the user research phase.
Account customization
The ability to customize their goals and content will give users control to view relevant content.
Variety of topics
Users can scroll through multiple health and wellness articles and topics that pertain to their interests.
Build trust
Inaccurate health information is a public health concern. Knowing the article’s origin and author can help users develop trust and boost credibility.
Saving articles
Users have the option to follow the author, save articles, and content tags for users to manage their saved list.
Community engagement
A community dashboard will allow users to engage, share, and discuss health topics with each other to build a supportive platform.
Usability Test
Early testing to evaluate designs was helpful to communicate with users and understand areas of improvement. Findings were synthesized through an affinity map diagram.
Inanimate objects
Faces can incite different emotions in users, the use of illustrations and inanimate objects is preferred compared to realistic faces.
Heavy content
Users felt overwhelmed with articles that are heavy on screen. Since there was too much going on, they weren’t motivated to click into it.
High-Fidelity Designs
Iterate
From the usability test, I refined the designs to reflect the visual insights discovered on the test.
Color theme organization
To organize and support users’ visual flow, a color theme was created. This will also prevent confusion of colors in each category.
Article preview
An introductory preview is added to prevent overwhelming content for users.
Visual in discussions
I added new images and updated colors to balance out the text layout within discussions to create a visual flow and consistency.
Reflections
Learnings
It was my first experience designing an end-to-end mobile application. I saw the value to test early with high-fidelity frames. The visuals aided users’ communication during the test. The compromise needed is the time focused on visuals compared with testing in low-fidelity frames.
Design is an ongoing learning experience. I learn the importance of balancing visuals and content when there is complex content for users to digest. It is essential to continue to practice these hierarchy and UI elements.
What would I do differently?
- Incorporate a research plan on account and health topics that users would be motivated to see on their personalized content.
- Explore an alternative to paid plans with users and review the pros and cons.