Project Overview
Healthome+ is a web application that I designed when I observed the role that these played during the pandemic, and how it is just growing. Quality healthcare must not be denied to anyone, not in this era of fast internet access. As a bid to say adieu to user painpoints in online healthcare, presenting Healthome+ .
Problem statement
With so many healthcare websites, why do people still migrate from one site to another to get the right treatment advice?
During the pandemic there were huge worries and problems for patients all around the globe. Since all were locked down, they began to worry about their appointments that were scheduled in the near future. An average household had the worry of whom to consult if there some kind of emergency in the house. Even before the pandemic, people had to migrate from one website to another for online healthcare.
Opportunity
What if a healthcare website acts as a one stop healthcare solution?
A well designed website which serves the purpose of one stop healthcare solution. My goal was to design a healthcare website which ended the pain switching from one website to another and make the website trustworthy for a patient.
Why there is an opportunity?
The global digital health market size was valued at USD 175.6 billion in 2021 is projected to grow to $660 billion by 2025.
The market grew at a rate of 19.1% from 2019 to 2020.
The market is estimated to witness a year-on-year growth of ranged from 21.2% to 29.8% in the next 5 years.
5% of all Google searches are health-related.
User surveys
In my pursuit to understand the user better in the case of healthcare websites, I conducted a user survey by the medium of google forms which received over 10 responses till it was closed. The age group was between 18 and 59.
A. 75% of the participants marked that they have used health websites for health related queries.
B. 50% of the participants purchased health products from health websites.
C. Some participants highlighted that although they had used apps/websites for online consultation, it becomes difficult to choose which doctor suits them the most.
D. 75% of the participants disclosed that they don’t have a separate bin for health waste or are not aware of how to dispose them and hence dispose it through the common bin.
Competitive analysis
As part of my goal of making user experience as smooth as possible in the healthcare websites, I went to explore what was currently successful and could be improved.
A. I looked at the websites of PharmEasy, practo, netmeds and 1mg as part of my exercise. All these websites made sure that they put up good display of their USP’s and offers on the landing page.
B. Clear visibility of what they sell or what services they provide.
C. Customer reviews and stats in the end of the page.
D. In the product description page, usually expected delivery date is given.
E. Ratings and reviews included in the product description page.
F. Health articles included in such a way that they don’t shadow the main objective of the website.
G. In practo, reviews for the doctor are also shown and his profile can also be viewed, although it may involve more clicks.
H. 1mg had too long landing page. Pharmeasy mainly focussed on categorising by brands. netmeds and practo had a more balanced website.
Overall I concluded that all sites served their purpose well and took utmost care of their user at the other side of the screen. Still there remain some pain points that need to be ironed out to make a wholesome user experience.
After compiling and analyzing the data I gathered from user survey and competitive analysis, i decided to frame a user persona to have a better understanding of the user I am going to design the health website for.
User Persona
Pain points
Having understood the user’s point of view while surfing health sites I came to conclude the following as major pain points
Site Mapping
Having framed the persona and keeping the user flow in mind, i started designing the wireframes of the website.
Wireframes
Landing screen
Select doctor screen
Healthcare products screen
Articles screen
After scanning through the rough wireframes, I decided to add some life to the site by stepping into the phase of initial prototyping.
Landing screen
Healthcare products screen
As part of making the site user friendly, I conducted a user testing exercise in which I assigned some simple tasks to the participants and asked them to execute those. I kept the option open of asking me to be there while they do the task or they could do it in complete privacy.
The key findings of the testing were
A. Participants didn’t find the color scheme soothing as they enter a health website and some said that somewhere it is too much contrasting while somewhere it was very dull.
B. Participants were confused about the purpose of the website from the landing page, and more importantly had to more often ask for guidance to navigate from the landing page.
C. Most participants communicated that the product card size was too large and they didn’t get to know about any offers till they look at the slashed price.
D. People wanted more use of the search bar and lucid user flow to the doctors’ and product pages.
Based upon their feedback, I decided to make some improvements to the design to make it more user friendly.
More prominent display of offers and services of the site. Also more importance to the search bar for smooth user flow.
Filter on the left side with more options aligned vertically and sort by feature introduced on the top aligned horizontally.
Card design changed and made more viewer friendly with offers on them and only necessary minimalistic information.
Landing screen
Find doctors screen
Healthcare products screen
One-stop search results screen
A bit towards the environment
There are serious health concerns from the health waste generated at normal households as they are disposed just like other items. Main problem is many don’t know about disposal center or how to dispose. So in a bid to solve the problem, healthome+ has a feature of health wastebins.
Seeing my research, ideations, prototypes, testing, and implementations evolve from the first stages to the final product was very elating and humbling experience. It was an extraordinary challenge for me to immerse myself in an unfamiliar field of healthcare sites but the problem statement was a driving force behind my quest to ease the user pain points.
In my further evolution of this project, i aspire to create and introduce features similar to social media groups so that users can form their own doctor’s squad for personalized treatment and the doctor’s can coordinate well for the user’s healthcare.
Overall it was a great learning experience.
