Easy Pilly
Your meds reminder app
Role: Main UX/UI Designer
Duration: 3 months (Jun-Aug '23)
Project vision
Easy Pilly is a mobile app and responsive website focused on social good.
Users who need to be reminded to take their medicine(s) input their treatment details into the app and set reminders.
Easy Pilly is accessible on mobile, desktop and tablet, and is made to be intuitive and easy to use, especially for the most vulnerable members of the community.
Challenges
1) Build a product accessible on multiple devices
2) Help users manage their medication easily
3) Provide different input options
Problem & goal
According to the BMC Primary Care, the number of prescribed medication has increased by 42.6% between 2004 and 2019 in England and Wales. Because of this increase, more and more people are struggling to keep track of their medication. Easy Pilly's purpose is to make its users' life easier by allowing them to manage their medicine schedule easily.
Research
Interviews
To better understand what my future users are going through, I decided to talk to people taking regular medication or who have family members who do. I did not go into details to respect their privacy but asked questions on how they manage their treatment, the issues they encounter and what could help them. I was very surprised by the number of people who struggle to remember their medication schedule and how stressful it gets for them. Some also mentioned their grand-parents and the difficulty for them to set up reminders, which was quite distressful.
It showed everyone can be impacted by this issue, no matter the age, and that there is a need for a lasting solution.
Personas
To better understand my target audience and cater for different use cases, I started working on 2 sets of personas: Charlotte and Raj.
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Charlotte is an active retiree who suffers from arthritis. She needs a way to remember to carry her medicine when she heads outside. She will be my mobile app user
Raj is a busy dad who wants to get a reminder to take his hay fever medicine. He will be my responsive website user, using the app mainly on desktop
User journey maps
As part of the initial research, I imagined how Charlotte and Raj might be using existing medicine reminder apps, how they feel using them and how their experience could be improved. While the apps have some positive aspects, both users still struggle to find the exact features that would help them in their daily lives.
Competitive audit
Before starting the ideation phase, I wanted to use a pill reminder app myself, like Charlotte and Raj did, see how it worked and how I could offer a better user experience. It was quite overwhelming to discover tens of companies with the same product on the app store or online. Was my project valid after all? I needed to find a feature that would set me apart from the competition.
I settled on experimenting two direct competitors, Medisafe and My Therapy, and one indirect which delivers medication, Lloyds Direct.
I noticed they all offered a manual input to register one's medicine, very lengthy and cumbersome, and no other alternative to do it. I thought to myself, "why not offer a prescription upload feature to my users? That would make their lives so much easier!"
I was on to something and immediately started drafting my first designs.
Ideation
Digital wireframes & lo-fi prototype
For my digital designs, I started by focusing on the mobile app. Users have two ways to add their medication: upload/take a photo of their prescription or input it manually. Both flows offer also reminder options.
1st usability study
To make sure I was heading in the right direction with the mobile app, I set up my first usability study focusing on the 2 main user flows described above.
Participants
2 men and 3 women, between the ages of 30 and 40, three of them taking regular medication and the other two, occasionally.
Sessions
Office-based moderated studies, lasting approximately 20 minutes each, where users tested the two main flows. There were also asked how likely they would use the app in a real context and if it would improve their day-to-day life.
Findings
Clicking on "continue" in the intro pages is cumbersome
It's not clear what the calendar in the footer is meant to do
The "bring medication" field is not clear
I gathered my findings in an affinity map and decided to work on the most pressing issues below:
Refining the designs
For my mock ups, I introduced the solutions to the issues the testers flagged during the usability study.
Clicking on "continue" in the intro pages is cumbersome
Upon choosing an option, the screen goes to the next one automatically
A few of the changes made to the app
The "bring medication" field is not clear
"Bring medication" was renamed "carry medication" for more clarity and a tool tip appears on tap to guide the user
2nd usability study & hi-fi prototype
After refining the mobile app designs, I reached again to my usability testers for a new round of feedback. They mentioned 3 elements that should greatly improve the user experience once fixed:
1. "what if the user wants to remember what their medicine looks like? There's no indication of that"
2. "in the manual flow, I cannot say I only need to take my med. once a month"
3. "it's not obvious my med. has been added to my list"
If I thought at first my app looked finalised, this new round of feedback made me realise there's always room for improvement, until no major blockers subsist.
There's no indication of what the med. looks like
The med icon has been added and the user can change its shape and colour
More changes..
I cannot say I only need to take my med. once a month
The user can access more frequency choices with "More options"
After this second round of changes, I delivered my updated high-fidelity prototype:
Play with the prototype
Responsive website
Sitemap
Since the mobile app was refined and looked satisfactory, it was now time to look into its counterpart, the responsive website.
The first step was to think about the information architecture and the pages the website should contain. After revisiting the findings from the user research I did at the start of the project, I built a sitemap with a hierarchical structure. Sitemaps are also a great way to help people who use assistive technologies navigate the product successfully.
I wanted the responsive website to be a platform where the user could learn more about Easy Pilly and its objectives. To help, I chose to add a few informational pages, such as the "about" section. Another page introduces the mobile app version of the website should the user want to download it.
However I wanted to make sure "Schedule reminder" remained the main action of the website, allowing the user to set up their medication.
Wireframes, mock ups & hi-fi prototype
After deciding on the pages my responsive website should contain, I started by drafting my digital wireframes, followed by the UI implementation.
Mobile
Tablet
Desktop
The user experience is tailored to each device and offers optimum features.
One of the main differences between the mobile app and the responsive website is the introduction of the account creation that allows the user to receive notifications in their email inbox. Another difference: on the desktop version, they won't be able to take a picture of their prescription like in the mobile app, however the user will still be able to upload a picture or a PDF of the file.
Remember our desktop user Raj and how he used to forget his allergy pill? His hay fever won't get in the way of his daily run now that he gets email reminders with Easy Pilly!
Play with the prototype
Look back on the challenges
1 - Build a product accessible on multiple devices
Wether the user is more into mobile apps or browsing on their laptop, Easy Pilly can be accessed on any device, making it a true versatile product. No matter where you are, you can always check your med. schedule and receive alerts.
2 - Help users manage their medication easily
The features Easy Pilly offer alleviate the patient's mental load. A wide range of reminders alert them when it's time to take their medicine, when they're running out of pills or even the place where they are stored.
3 - Provide different input options
Unlike current apps on the market, patients can input their med. in 2 different ways with Easy Pilly: by taking a picture/uploading their prescription or adding it manually. This is a great way to make the product more accessible while catering for users with different tech skills.
Takeaways & next steps
Having a medical issue is already stressful as it is and having to remember a medicine schedule just adds up to the whole anxiety. I was glad I could understand more what users are going through in their daily lives and find a solution to help them.
Building Easy Pilly was not a simple task as it involved lots of work on different platforms and also numerous amendments after each usability study. It taught me how essential it is to ask users for their feedback, even when we think the product is ready.
If I had to do things differently, I would try to interview also medical professionals such as nurses or doctors as I am sure they would bring lots of new ideas to help their patients.
If I were to keep working on the project, I would love to add accessibility features for people with visual or motor impairments. This public is even more likely to use a med. reminder app and as it is currently, it might not cater for all abilities.
I hope you enjoyed reading through this case study!
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