Intro
Discover
Define
Ideate
Prototype

ComfortCheck:
Help Manage Your Chronic Pain

Overview
An app to help people better understand their health and manage their pain. Users input their symptoms and pain data to receive information on various conditions. The app also features a comprehensive wiki with trusted health information. ComfortCheck simplifies pain management, making it easy to track symptoms and remained informed about personal health.
My Role
UX Designer
Timeline
3 months
2023

    Problem Statement

    Bridging the Gap in Chronic Pain Care

    Common Gaps in Healthcare
    • People endure distress and misdiagnoses due to inadequate information and communication within the healthcare system.
    Need for Convenient Support
    • People with long-term pain often resort to online resources rather than their healthcare provider due to the costs and convenience.
    Personal Empowerment
    • What if there was an app that helped people track symptoms and provide reliable info to empower users managing symptoms?
    Design-Informing Process
    What makes this project particularly interesting is how a willingness to pivot our design direction while guided by our key values improved our final product. As such, my focus here is especially on those pivot moments and how they affected the project.
    Introducing ComfortCheck
    ComfortCheck is a health monitoring app for chronic patients, people with long-term conditions, and family members to log-in and track daily progress and personal health information.

    Discover

    Understanding the Users' Pain
    Over the course of three weeks I conducted interviews with 9 participants of varying condition and 2 experts in patient care.
    I managed all aspects of the research for ComfortCheck, from writing the session guide and recruiting participants to conducting the interviews. The sessions were remote, semi-structured and lasted 30 minutes. The goals of the interviews were to learn:
    Interview Demographics
    I uncovered several key challenges faced by patients with chronic symptoms, particularly around symptom management and communication.
    I coded the participants' interviews, categorized affinities, and analyzed the findings on a Miro board. From this, I identified three key issues to focus on for the next phases of design and ideation.
    Research Synthesis
    Key Insights from the Users
    My Responsibilities
    I wrote the research session guide for partners,  recruited all 20 participants and was the only point-of-contact with participants to set up interviews. I delegated team members to facilitate interviews, and out of the 20 interviews, I moderated 7 of them and note took for 8 of them.

    Define

    Design Informing Models
    Through synthesizing primary research findings, I was able to create simple models to help inform the rest of the design.
    I examined the participants' interviews by coding responses and grouping affinities based on themes and topics. From this analysis, I created diagrams to outline task hierarchy, define user classes, and develop advanced flow models to inform the design process.
    Hierarchical Task Inventory
    Understanding the problems users face and what they want out of a health management app, I started to map the tasks and subtasks within our system.
    Work Roles
    Stakeholders include the user's family or caretaker if they're the ones tracking the condition. The doctor will also need access to the data for diagnosis.
    Advanced Flow Model
    Mapped the exchange of information between different users, care providers, and healthcare databases.

    Reframe

    Let's Take a Step Back

    After interviewing potential users, I had a broader understanding of the problem space and could define our goals.
    After studying challenges faced by people with chronic conditions, disabilities, or long term pain, I realized that their issues go beyond dealing with pain. A lot of problems we encountered were with communicating their symptoms to their doctors and receiving accurate medical information for their specific condition. I decided to pivot from a pain tracking app to a personal health management system and database.

    Problem Statement

    "How might we help people track their health, check symptoms, & access reliable medical information to make informed decisions about their care?"

    Ideate

    Exploring Potential Designs
    With a clearly defined problem and goal to work towards, I started designing the layout with lo-fi wireframes and storyboards.
    Sketched Wireframes
    With an understanding of the problems users face and what they want out of a health management app, I can start to design the tasks and subtasks within the system.
    Storyboarding
    While the app focuses on the patient-side, we need to understand who else will engage with our system. Stakeholders include the user's family or caretaker if they're the ones tracking the condition. Doctors also need data access for diagnoses.
    Digital Wireframes
    To further iterate layout designs and interactions, I created low-fidelity mockups in Figma to test with users within our hypothesized work roles.

    Prototype

    Ideas into Reality: Introducing ComfortCheck
    The wireframe from last phase was where the project ended. I returned and developed the UX / UI based on received feedback.
    Next Steps
    Lessons learned
    Remote User Research
    Difficult finding available users to meet in-person. Adopted remote research methods, utilizing surveys, recorded interviews, and AI tools to streamline synthesis and extract insights effectively.
    Consistency in UI Design
    Maintained consistency by using Figma’s Auto Layout and design systems to create responsive UI components that could be replicated throughout my design to save valuable time
    UX Collaboration
    Empathy was key to tackling this problem. By understanding users’ challenges, I was able to create an app that not only addresses their needs but also gives them the tools to take control of their health.
    If we had more time
    If given more time, I would gather usability data and benchmarks, analyze errors and successes, refine the prototype to address new concerns, and conduct further testing.
    Back to Projects
    Harrison.Smith-3@colorado.edu
    InstagramLinkedIn