Healthcare as a Student…
UIUC students face various challenges in managing their healthcare. The current system for healthcare management, which involves using the online portal for the McKinley Health Center, is inconvenient and confusing. The portal, only accessible through a browser, is far from mobile-friendly. It requires multiple steps to access medical records, make appointments and refills, and seek medical care, and these features seem to be hidden in difficult-to-find corners of the interface. Balancing busy schedules and competing priorities, students frequently struggle with the dual challenges of time management and motivation to take care of their health. The situation becomes notably inconvenient when essential health information is inaccessible without a laptop or computer.
Therefore, there is an opportunity to design a system that is more accessible, convenient, and user-friendly. Our point of view is that UIUC students need a way to manage their healthcare because the current system is overwhelming, inconvenient, and confusing. Our design question is: How might we design a system that makes healthcare management more accessible, convenient, and user-friendly for UIUC students?
Role:
UX Designer
UX Researcher
Skills:
Agile Methodology, User Research, Affinity Mapping, Wireframing, User Personas, User Journeys, and Prototyping
Project type:
Individual Design Sprint
Time Line:
2-weeks
Interactive Prototypes
User Research & Synthesis:
I conducted 5 semistructured interviews with various college students. I asked three main questions:
How do you manage your healthcare appointments at Mckinley?
What do you mainly use Mckinley for?
What are the main health issues you face as a college student?
From this, I deduced a few use cases which inspired the main features I will be focussing on for the app:
An interface for easy appointment scheduling. I used the interviews to find out what questions to ask during scheduling. One screen lets the patient choose their main health issues, which I ranked based on the interview data and other health app research.
Medication management interface, where users can refill, track, learn about their prescriptions, and get reminders about when to take them.
A messaging center where students may interact with their healthcare team.
User Persona and Journey Map
Prevelant user groups include casual visitors seeking health assistance, women managing contraception, individuals prioritizing mental health and wellness, and international students navigating routine check-ups and healthcare systems. “Design for one, extend to many” is the key principle of inclusive design. It emphasizes the importance of tailoring solutions to individual needs rather than attempting a one-size-fits-all approach that may ultimately fail to meet anyone's specific requirements by attempting to amalgamate conflicting needs into a singular design. Given my limited time and a broader pool of interviews with individuals managing contraception, I strategically chose to concentrate on this specific user group for crafting my user persona and journey. They also had similar needs to those managing their mental health through a psychiatrist at McKinley.
