Panacea- Building Confidence and Trust for Users

Panacea is a web app that connects people relocating for work and travelers in foreign countries to quality healthcare resources by explaining to them the cultural context of their new country and how healthcare works.

We named the web app Panacea because panacea means “a remedy for all difficulties.”

Our Client came to us with a well thought out problem space in global healthcare that she was passionate about and had lived through herself. Our team was tasked with researching, prototyping, and evaluation the web app from the ground up and exploring an initial brand identity.

problem

It is hard enough to find top quality doctors, hospitals, and wellness providers in your home country. Now imagine those difficulties in a new country. The overall problem space and the problems that research showed were:

1. new language with doctors, staff, and signs

2. unknown medications that users weren’t comfortable with

3. procedures that were unexpected, done differently, or done by a different type of doctor

4. new insurance processes and coverage than what users knew previously

5. new emergency contact numbers that they had difficulty remembering

6. client wanted this resource to be global, but there are differences in each country including what is legally allowed

7. users wanted trusted relationships to get recommendations for healthcare

8. offer users this information for free in a way that the client would still be able to financially benefit from it

methods

Competitive Audit- We reviewed websites and apps that had similar features or were resources to find healthcare needs in the US as well as abroad.

Coordinate Remote Interviews and Usability Testing- Our users were located all over the world. I scheduled them using Calendly. This allowed users to schedule their time in their time zone as well as giving them the flexibility to reschedule if their schedules changed. We were able to conduct 6/7 scheduled tests in this way.

User Interviews- We conducted remote interviews using Google Hangouts and recorded with QuickTime player. We chose Google Hangouts because most users already had google emails and it didn’t require them to download anything. We interviewed four relocated families overseas. Three team members including myself wrote the script to user interviews. I moderated 2/4 sessions.

Directed Storytelling- The team reached out to their personal connections to hear stories about people needing healthcare in foreign countries to get a variety of country experiences to help ensure that our design would be able to be able to grow to a global scale.

Moodboards- The team created moodboard to get insight into colors and the feel of initial branding. A survey was sent out to a variety of connections to get numerous data points.

Accessibility- I used WebAIM to evaluate the color contrast of the moodboards. I made color contrast suggestions to move forward that passed WCAG 2 level AA requirements.

Affinity Diagram- We synthesized the data from the user interviews and directed story telling and created user statements for each group of data to guide the prototype.

findings and recommendations

Click to view Annotated Wireframes Prototype

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, they can search for their city and immediately see a brief healthcare overview that includes expectation-setting content about hospitals, specialists and medication.  Since expectations are built around what your home country is, Panacea will initially start off in English and being compared to the United States healthcare system.

Moving down, users can find a list of relevant emergency numbers. During our research, we heard that people felt guilty for not knowing or remembering their local emergency contact numbers. Here they can find that information in one easy-to-access location!

Next we see the medical conversion chart! Many users expressed frustration with having to bring a bunch of their medication with them from their home country and they felt nervous about using medication that they didn’t recognize. This feature offers translations of specific medication for peace of mind.

Finally, we heard early and often that there is nothing more reassuring to people navigating a new healthcare environment than connecting to others who’ve done it before. Within the Expat Forum, users can find tips and insights from other expats by asking questions or browsing through existing topics of interest.

Prototype- Two members of our team created an initial interactive prototype based off our research findings and ideas to solve the problem.

Persona- In our research we heard numerous stories of families with young children or who were expecting a baby being relocated for better job opportunities, so I made the persona around those stories.

Journey Map- Building off research and our persona, I created a journey map to show an example of what current users experience and the opportunities for Panacea to alleviate pain points.

Usability Test- We evaluated our prototype to determine if it was meeting users needs and what further improvements could be made to improve it for the user. From the usability tests, it was determined that building out two features would benefit users:

1) a feature to store medical records

2) another feature to file an insurance claim to get reimbursed for cash payments which happen often in certain countries would benefit users

Future Considerations

We recommend that Panacea create partnerships with healthcare professionals, healthcare clinics, and healthcare systems to offer them visibility to build their organization which could create a revenue stream for Panacea while offering users a free resource.  This will also ensure that the data about the doctors, clinics, hospitals, and wellness institutions is accurate.