The Clinician
ZEDOC Portal
Redesigning The Clinician’s ZEDOC Portal to display the right information, the right way at the right time.
University Group Project
Summary
ZEDOC is a tool which allows doctors to assess patients health outcomes over time, displaying patient survey data covering a wide range of health indicators. This information is crucial to how clinicians measure effectiveness of different treatments and therefore tailor the care they are providing, enabling them in the work they do.
Our client ‘The Clinician’ had identified that they wanted to look at how they displayed information shown in the ZEDOC portal, based on feedback from their users that they weren’t always able to find what they were looking for. The team motto was ‘the right information, the right way, the right time’ and this drove our key design deliverables. I was responsible for ‘the right way’ part of this assignment, focusing on the way information was displayed and interacted with. We started by conducting a thorough analysis of the current portal, where I mapped existing work flows and looking for where we might be able to reduce the number of steps taken to reach key data. I also worked alongside other team members to establish what the most important information was, determined through conversations with our client, user interviews and applying a range of different design principles.
Our findings led us to bringing key patient data to the forefront and administrative tools became integrated into a set of platform wide functions rather than being the focus of the content. I also introduced a dashboard feature, so clinicians could track progress of their projects as a whole and asses the overall trends before digging deeper. I was also responsible for the overall flow of the portal, setting up a design system and visual identity alongside another designer which was implemented across the entire platform.
Problem Definition
The existing portals design hid key information beneath several layers of navigation, and had two distinctive ‘modes’ where operational features could be accessed on one side and key patient data was viewed through a separate side. We needed to remove this back and forth to allow easier navigation between the two so clinicians could quickly perform key tasks while viewing and interacting with the information they were accessing.
How might we best display outcomes to time poor clinicians in the ZEDOC Portal?
ZEDOC Portal Map
I built a map of the existing site flow and used this to extrapolate the key user flows, which would then be used as a baseline measurement we could use to ensure we had made each task flow clearer and more efficient.
Research Methodologies Used
Design Heuristics
The principle of design heuristics is that you match the users expectations of how something works in the real world, based on their lived experience. We researched other similar platforms to understand how our solution could allow user recognition rather than recall.
Information Architecture
The way information is organised and categorised was identified as being a key area for development early on. We chose to conduct card sorting and tree jacking exercises to understand how people would naturally expect to move through the information displayed so we could match this in our information architecture.
Data Visualisation
The way data is displayed is hugely important to its readability and the ability to interact with that data was also identified as being hugely important. We researched ways we could show this data, moving away from static graphs to filterable, dynamic content where we could add value by providing deeper insight.
User Interviews / User Stories
We conducted interviews with medical professionals who were familiar with the subject matter to understand what their day to day work looked like, what their priorities were and how we might cater to these needs in our solution. We used these findings to create user stories that would drive the key task flows we developed as part of our solution.
User Stories
The insight gained through interviews with a variety of health professionals identified 3 key user stories
Story 1. As a clinician, I want to have a quick access to patient profiles and their health indicator scores so that I can check previous measurements and how they have been doing.
Story 2. I want to quickly send reminders and complete other project administrative functions, so that I can make sure I have data & reports on time for reports /research.
Story 3. I want to get a quick summary of the projects I’m a part of , so that I can get an overall idea of the project’s progress. This helps me keep on track with my day to day tasks.
Design Principles
Effective
We recognised that care teams require easy-to-use systems to perform complex tasks while juggling challenging schedules. Users of ZEDOC’s Provider Portal were most concerned with providing effective service for patients, while also gaining insight into the effects of their patient-centred care.
Clear
Medical care teams have to process a lot of detail driven information regardless of their mental and physical fatigue. Because of this, any information that is not easy to read and interpret will most likely fail to be incorporated into daily practice.
Human
We needed to develop the Provider Portal in a way that champions usability, making sure users have access to the information they need. Clinicians are focused on how they can help their patients and the portal should do the same, becoming a partner in care.
Ideation Phase
Final Prototype - Dashboard
Final Prototype - Analytics Page
Final Prototype - Patients Page
Final Prototype - Milestones Page
Final Prototype - Milestones Page (Light Version)
Design Decisions
Integrated Project & Patient Functionality
Clear, distinct buttons visible within different views to integrate the functions available. Creating a way of working where it’s clear how to reach each desired outcome with feedback highlighting when a task has been achieved.
Analytics
The Analytics functionality has been modernised and is now interactive, with the ability to filter results and quickly compare each patients data against the population wide data set.
Navigation System
I created an interactive project tab where you can navigate between different views within the same page to easily move between different information.
Light / Dark Mode
Based on insights from user interviews, I chose to include a light/dark mode to reduce eye strain as clinicians are looking at screens constantly throughout their day.
Reflection
The subject matter in this project was a highly technical, with a lot of jargon being used in the original design which we clarified and streamlined to ensure language was consistent with users expectations. We weren’t able to speak directly with the clinicians users for privacy reasons, so we worked closely with the client as well as conducting independent interviews with people in the medical profession to understand the work they do and their values.
I am really proud of the solution we were able to provide, but further work is required to ensure the suitability of our solution based on feedback from the clinicians users themselves who are more familiar with the data being used to highlight any areas we might have missed.
It was hugely rewarding to be able to work with a client whose work had a direct impact on people’s health and wellbeing.