Re-imagining medication adherence

As part of a large digital enablement project for a pharmaceutical client, I led an end-to-end UX work-stream aiming to create the perfect digital companion for a medication pre-sorting and delivery service.

An app for pill boxes

According to the WHO, non-adherence can account for up to 125,000 deaths each year in the US and it is estimated that adherence to chronic medications is only about 50%. When I received a mission from a homecare & pharmacy client to design an app for the elderly to resolve this problem, I knew this was a tough UX challenge.

The pillbox

One of the most significant recent inventions in the pharmacy industry is the pillbox, which is made of small packets of pills prescribed for a patient.

With these pre-packaging and shipping services, many patients have improved their medication adherence. However, with many pills inside a small packet comes inconveniences, such as patients not knowing which pill is for what, not being able to skip a specific pill, and difficulty updating the prescription…

From the initial user research, I learned that we needed to build an app that is trusted by the patients, non-intrusive, and helps them adhere to a healthier medication routine.

Planning for the MVP

Wayfinding in Miro?

Wayfinding is widely used in architecture and graphic design to help people navigate through physical spaces. However, as the digital world gets increasingly complex, designing good wayfinding systems in the virtual world became just as important. This is where I incorporated the color strips seen in many physical spaces into Miro, where people constantly get lost.

The result was more than ideal, with 28/30 participants successfully navigating through the entire session without issue and only 2 with problems with their Windows trackpad making them unable to scroll.

An engaging workshop means happy clients onboarded. The creative yet simple design of Miro wayfinding was part of the reasons that cleared the way for the digital team and ensured we received all the resources we hoped for.

Designing a low touch app

Medication management use cases

Based on our user research and expert insights learned from the workshop, I discovered two main features for medication management: reminder and tracker.

Depending on if the reminder and tracker get utilized, there could be four use cases that cover different levels of user engagement.

Prototyping multiple use cases

When designing different use cases for the same app, it’s essential to document the components as they are likely to have many similar states. For example, to develop the medication card, I created a tree map logic to define every form of the card by answering “yes” or “no” to each component property. Under Figma’s variance feature, the card can be easily transformed into every state:

By doing so, I made sure the component library was clean, organized, and most importantly, MECE (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive)

Evolving the card component

With the use cases in mind, I set out to ideate the look of the most important component in the app, the medication card. This component was constantly improved over the course of the project.

For the elderly, screen real estate is even more precious given the number of them using a zoom factor on their devices and the accessibility requirements. Some say designing is doing subtraction rather than addition, and I concur, as a simple date indicator took me several iterations to find the simplest design.

Designing beyond the app interface

I always remember that UX goes beyond the app. For the text message feature, I carefully detailed the message and response of each scenario, ensuring patients always get the most accurate instructions.

Accessibility

Traditional KPIs no longer work for this App since our goal was not to maximize engagement. In fact, 2/4 of use cases don’t even require users to regularly open the app.

Traditional KPIs no longer work for this App since our goal was not to maximize engagement. In fact, 2/4 of use cases don’t even require users to regularly open the app. Thus, a set of OKRs was specially designed to measure the success of the app with a heavy emphasis on accessibility and medication adherence.

Design system

A clean and organized component library is what every designer dreams of when they pick up a project. I had to start from scratch, but my successor won’t need to.

Conclusion: creating real-world impact

After 8 months of diligent work, we helped the client launch its first digital application, establishing a brand-new digital service function. The client transitioned from zero tech capabilities to a dedicated digital team with an excited Director of IT and a vendor partner to drive the tech platform and app development going forward.