Creating a User Friendly Clinical Search
Problem
A healthcare company that offered cutting edge treatments needed a new clinical trials search solution. The current web+mobile site had become unmanageable as case study volume and website traffic increased. Looking for a scalable, efficient, and user friendly search option my team and I were brought in to build context, understand user pain, and incorporate stakeholder needs.
Process
Working closely with the senior engineer we created a scalable and effective solution by deploying a user centric approach that put the user first and leveraged UX / UI best practices.
Solution
Researched, designed, tested, iterated upon, and contributed to the development of a simple yet robust search solution for the Oncology Clinical Trials Database.
My Role
As the sole UX researcher on this project I connected with the target market through journey and empathy mapping, competitive analysis, user interviews, persona building, wireframing, and usability testing. Working closely with a small engineering team, a UI Designer, and project managers, we were able to research, design, and develop a functioning, scalable, user friendly search solution.
Initial Research
A deep dive into company background, review website analytics, identify competitors, and current user experience.
Analytics Review - Google Analytics
UX Audit - Taking inventory of UI and interactions
Heuristic Evaluation - Evaluating product on N/N Group Usability Heuristics
Competitive Analysis - Seeking out working solutions within similar industries
Stakeholder Interviews - Understanding project goals, limitations, and expectations.
Aligning with organizational KPI's and project goals, uncovering key pieces of information regarding research direction, understanding currant usage and the target users, and knowing what stakeholders expect from a solution is important during this initial research phase.
User Centric Approach
User Interviews
Oncology Patients = 92% of user base
Referring & Internal Physicians = 8% of user base
User Testing
Moderated and unmoderated usability testing was conducted on the current clinical trial red-route to better understand user behavior, engagement, pain-points, and motivations.
Testing Type = Moderated Usability Testing
Participants = 5 total ( 3 male, 2 Female )
Product Testing = SCC Live website (Oncology Clinical Trials)
Testing Tool = UserZoomGo
Recruiting = Client Provided Pool
Goal = In-depth look at the user journey, pain-points, motivations, and engagement with the Clinical Trials red-route.
Testing Type = Unmoderated Usability Testing
Participants = 5 total ( 3 male, 2 Female )
Product Testing = SCC Live website (Oncology Clinical Trials)
Testing Tool = UserZoomGo
Recruiting = Client Provided Pool
Goal = In-depth look at the user journey, pain-points, motivations, and engagement with the Clinical Trials red-route.
Findings
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Users had extreme difficulty navigating the accordion menus with a 55% success rate.
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Interactions lead to dead-ends, 63% participants vocalized needing guidance or context.
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Users where looking for a search bar.
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Protocol #'s instead of titles caused confusion and misdirection.
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Very little value per-click, limited information is conveyed in general.
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No clear CTA or resources to continue the experience.
Priority 1 - Critical
Priority 2 - Major
Priority 3 - Minor
Priority 1 - Critical
Priority 2 - Major
Priority 2 - Major
Empathy Mapping
Focusing on user pains, motivations, actions, and thoughts. empathy maps provided insight into the benefits of improved search and navigation, defined usage patterns and expectations, and helped to outline direction.
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Persona Building
Who are our users? What do they care about? Why are these individuals part of this interaction? What do they expect to gain from it? These and similar questions were examined during the persona building and target market identification stages of the project.
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Information Architecture
Current and Proposed IA
Navigation through the accordion folders was cumbersome and left users frustrated and empty-handed.
Proposed information architecture would remove the folders and allow a robust search bar to take over the hierarchy, simplifying engagement and access to the database of NHI Clinical Trials.
User Flow
The clinical trial user flow is outlined to visualize the users journey, uncover bottlenecks, and provide insight into how people move through the experience.
Design in Discovery
Sketching
Sketches were used to quickly iterate and communicate with development on future UI implementation and limitations
Wireframes
Wireframing began to bring the designs to life and provided a basis for feedback, iteration, and development.
Collaborating with Development
Annotated wireframes are provided to the development team to build context and simplify their workflow.
Continued Work and Hand-Off
After working through each stage of the project I collated the information I had collected and created work packages for the next part of the build. With my scope complete, stakeholders happy, and user expectations met I move into a support role as UI design and development ramp up.
