Project Details: A responsive, mobile first, self-health management app for seniors
Role: Lead UX Designer, Head Researcher, Project Manager & Coordinator
Timeline: 7 Months
Introduction
From ideation and user interviews to its final UI and consumer market projections, Silver First, the brand and the app, was developed through a multi-level design process that unfolded over 7 months. Follow along below to experience for yourself, the journey of how it started, where it's going, and everything in between.
Design Thinking: Empathizing
Despite the (baby) booming senior population being one of the biggest, if not THE biggest proponents of the healthcare system at present, their impact on/representation within the current healthcare marketplace, remains shockingly little.
The BIG Idea
A digital healthcare manager designed to meet the everyday medical needs of seniors
User Interviews
User interviews the first opportunity we'll have to engage with our desired demographic. Our goals are the following:
1. Learn as much as possible about target audience from firsthand respondents
2. Pinpoint actionable insights with regard to app structure features, functions, and general layout
3. Find common concerns among potential users to help narrow app focus
User Research Analysis
Key Finding: Seniors absolutely feel daunted by the modern, digital tech-reliant healthcare landscape.
Supporting Insights:
1. Ongoing struggle to search for and/or find quality doctors online
2. Trouble with automated messaging systems & in-app appointment bookings
3. Frustration with "Too gadget-y" (their words) means for even the most mundane tasks
Conclusion: When it comes to managing their everyday health, seniors crave simplicity, assurance, and direction.
Further Insights color-coded by interviewee
Meet Susan & Harold
Our 2 newly minted user personas below, now represent our target users. Their needs mimic the needs of our prospective customers, and therefore, understanding them, is essential to our app feature development process.
Task Analysis: Susan
Objective: Susan, a first time user of Silver First, must create an account for her Login. Follow Susan as she navigates her way through all of her first login options, and successfully creates her account, below.
Task Analysis: Harold
Objective: Harold, a new Silver First member, is looking for a low impact exercise program to ease back into working out. Follow Harold as he navigates his way through "Super Seniors" fitness signup, and successfully enrolls in a plan.
Information Architecture (IA)
Thanks to user personas Susan & Harold, we've narrowed our feature focus down to those deemed most beneficial for and likely easiest to be navigated by, seniors. This information is further organized into the hierarchical categories below until, slowly but surely, our sitemap has emerged.
Wireframes
From low to middle to high fidelity wireframes, the difference in screens is pretty remarkable. See how our designs have evolved during this time
1. Fitness Signup
2. Create Emergency Contact Directory
3. Medicine Cabinet Setup
Low-Fidelity Wireframes
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes
High-Fidelity Wireframes
Usability Testing
In order to see how Silver First will fare in the hands of its target demo, we'll be recruiting a handful of participants from of our target demo to test our prototype, first hand.
Main Objective:
Main Goal:
Assessing the learnability of Silver First's 3 core app features in the hands of our real life, target audience (seniors).
Identifying usability flaws within Silver First's 3 core app that prevent successful task completion by our target audience (seniors) during their usability testing session.
Full Usability Test Plan Available HERE
Usability Test Results
Following 2 moderated, in-person usability test sessions, there were a few minor errors and one that noticeably obstructed potential users path forward in this particular instance.
Session 1: Six participants total, ages widely varying from 33-81
Session 2: Three participants total, ages befitting the target demo (65+)
Top Error:
Fitness Center radio buttons not working properly, likely configured incorrectly.
Top Error Fix:
As it has rightfully turned out to be a component issue and not a design flaw, it'll be reviewed, reconfigured, and retested in Figma prototype until the problem has been resolved.
Full Usability Test Report Available HERE
Material Design
Our high fidelity, clickable prototype is perfect for usability testing, but even with all of the subsequent changes made following, we're nowhere near marketplace ready. Now, we shift gears from design process to design application, using the latest M3 guidelines to level up.
Design Style Guide
Our Silver First design documentation is not only a thorough record of brand origin, but also, the key to its brand future. Each element that contributed to the making of the app is, in itself, our guide for those tasked with maintaining it.
Silver First Figma Prototype
Try out the latest version of our working prototype, and test some of the features for yourself using our Figma embed below.
AI Integration
Nurse Ann opens the door to the future of healthcare tech innovation without complicating things unnecessarily for our target audience. As an AI assistance mechanism for seniors, we maintain she should always be more helpful than smart.
The Final UI
This is it! The end of a very fruitful team effort, and one that we can officially announce, is coming to an app store near you, very shortly. Below are the current iterations of our initial user flows, check it out.
Register New Account
4-Digit PIN Login
Home, Community & Profile Pages
Super Seniors Fitness Signup
Medicine Cabinet Setup
Emergency Contact Directory Setup
What's Next?
Consumer Growth Projections:
If we maintain our thoughtful, tech friendly approach to digital self-healthcare management, our senior base will see exponential growth in years 1-5.
Consumer Market Projections:
Years 1-5: We continue catering exclusively to our Silent Generation/Boomer base to strengthen our brand identity among existing users.
Years 6+: We begin catering to the elder Gen X-ers, then Millennials, Gen-Z, etc., as they become the senior majority, and the brand can pin-point their needs.
