Designing a Playbook for Creating Human-Centered Study Websites.
User Experience Design and Research | 2023 | Designed using Adobe Illustrator, Mural, and Microsoft Excel | Role - Service Designer
This was one of the projects I was involved as the only design researcher while at the Institute for Healthcare Delivery and Design, UI Health, under the guidance and mentorship of Jennifer Scully, Assistant Director.
At IHDD, a third of their efforts are dedicated to creating a human-centered clinical trial experience. In this journey, the designers often face the challenge of advocating for the importance of a website, then hastily assembling one due to limited time and budget constraints. However, in today's digital age, a digital presence is not just beneficial but essential for clinical trials. It must be accessible, informative, and, above all, human-centered.
To improve this experience for all the stakeholders involved, I collaborated on the development of a playbook. This playbook aims to support not only designers but also other stakeholders in crafting and launching a human-centered study website, thereby streamlining the website design process within the constraints of clinical research.
Methods
60
Hours of Secondary Research
15+
Published Papers Reviewed
10+
Interviews with Stakeholders Including a Card Sorting Exercise
2
Iterations of the Playbook
Why a Playbook?
When thinking about IHDD’s research mission to reliably design and deliver human centered research experiences, we can think of it as adopting a service design approach to research. However, making reliably designed and delivery of a service experience in the research space is challenging!
There are lots of issues that come up throughout a study process, such as the up-front work to set up up and apply for the study, the time pressure to fill out your application, the variety of stakeholders that need to be addressed, the systems that work to value what we have done in the past rather than being able to quickly implement improvements, constantly evolving needs of the study, etc.
To navigate such intricate environments, large organizations frequently employ playbooks as strategic instruments. These playbooks offer a structured framework that enables multidisciplinary teams to unify around shared objectives and values, thereby facilitating the execution of complex services. They encapsulate best practices, equip teams with decision-making aids, and provide a foundation for swift and dependable action. Moreover, playbooks are dynamic, evolving entities that adapt in tandem with the team's growing insights. They embody a collective methodology, underscore a focus on human-centricity, detail best practices, furnish decision-making resources, and mature over time.
How might we leverage study websites in the design + delivery human-centered experiences?
Research & Findings
I conducted interviews with various stakeholders involved in clinical trials, including call center agents, study coordinators, and the research team, to understand their needs from a clinical trial website. I also organized a card sorting activity to rank these needs in order of importance. Following this, I interviewed designers at IHDD to identify common challenges in building such websites during different phases of the clinical trial process. Lastly, I carried out in-depth research to discover best practices in website design and how they could be applied to improve clinical trial websites.
The Playbook
Reframing the problem allowed us to design concepts aimed at enhancing the patient experience at various stages of their journey. Taking into account the insights and preferences expressed by the patients, we developed five distinct concepts that integrate PROs to track and enhance osteoarthritis care. These concepts, refined over three iterations, are set for further testing in the project's next phase.
Below are excerpts from the Playbook.
Next Steps
Given that this Playbook focuses on websites, it's crucial to update it regularly because best practices in the digital space are constantly evolving. It might even require annual updates.
Moreover, IHDD has been developing a collection of Playbooks to standardize best practices while ensuring they can be customized for various studies. Through my work on this Playbook, I've observed that they could really use a playbook dedicated to establishing the tone and branding. This would encompass elements such as colors, branding, tone of voice, and imagery. They plan to direct their efforts towards this in the upcoming years.
See Other Projects
