- Project type: Concept project
- Participants: Max Cameron-Taylor, Hugo Nickols, Irene Alegre
- Duration: 2 weeks
- Tools: Pen and paper, Sketch, White walls, Invision, Marvel
- Processes: User interviews, user testing, branding, design studio, sketching, prototyping, persona creation, user flows, experience mapping
- Link to final prototype
“Nuffield provides their customers with what they need, when they need it”
Nuffield Health is one of the leading not-for-profit UK healthcare organisations, looking after people for more than 60 years. They offer a varied arrange of services, from gym facilities and fitness classes to health assessments, physiotherapy and medical treatments.
The Brief: Nuffield’s Integrated Services Approach
Our client wanted an app that would allow their customers to book medical appointments and other Nuffield Health services, but the app should also track the user’s health progression and encourage them to quit unhealthy habits and incorporate better lifestyle choices into their lives.
Checking Out The Competition
There are many apps to track your health. But no app does it all. What the Nuffield Health app can do well, however, is integrate both the booking and health tracking in one app. That should be Nuffield Health’s USP (Unique Selling Proposition).
User Research: Talking To People
The problem of people not being healthy is not knowledge. People know what they should be doing to stay healthy and/or become healthier: exercise and eat their greens. That’s not the problem.
The problem is willpower. The problem could actually be solved by designing a tool that encourages and helps users to create new, healthier habits.
Meet Geoff Perkins
This is Geoff, he’s our persona. Geoff is 41, married, with two kids. He’s a busy IT Manager and doesn’t have a lot of time to look after himself, which means he has been slowly piling on some pounds. And now he wants to lose the extra weight in order to be able to keep up with his kids.
We believe Geoff needs to be more active and eat better, which in turn will boost his energy levels, which in turn will help him stay motivated to continue being more active and eating better. It’s an endless cycle of improvement.
Our app will help Geoff incorporate and maintain healthy habits, as well as allow him to make doctor’s appointments quickly.
Sketching and Designing The Booking Screens
The design of the booking screens was fairly straightforward. Below are the iterations for three of the main screens, and some of the feedback we received at each stage.
Sketching and Designing the Health Tracker
Originally we thought a health tracker would encourage Nuffield Health customers to make better lifestyle choices, so we designed a screen that would track different health stats such as BMI, blood pressure and blood test results. The data would be inputed by the Health Specialist during the quarterly Health MOT (a Nuffield Health service that runs a general medical check on customers every three months). This, in theory, would allow customers to track their progress.
We thought users would be excited about this feature. Delighted. Instead, this is the feedback we got.
Which makes sense. So we scrapped that and came up with a solution that was completely different.
Creating Tiny Habits
BJ Fogg, PhD, is the creator of the concept of Tiny Habits. His TED talk is quite famous and his premise quite simple. According to BJ Fogg, only three things will change behaviour in the long term.
- Having an epiphany
- Changing your environment (what surrounds you)
- Taking baby steps
Fabulous, an app that claims to increase your energy levels, feel vibrant health, lose weight and sleep better by instilling healthy habits and routines in your life, does this pretty well. Here are two user reviews for this app:
Making Healthier Habits a Delight
Becoming healthier has never been this fun. Maybe this is a bit of an overstatement, but it’s our app, so we feel sort of entitled to say this.
Below are the first sketches of our Goals Screen. The user is prompted to set a new goal, and then is taken through several screens that give them several options, briefly explain the benefits of the selected goal and finally guide them through the process of completing it.
Next Steps
This is by no means a finished job. Here are the features we’d like to focus on next:
- Develop a section for users to learn how to be more mindful with guided meditations and breathing exercises
- Develop a My Health screen that gives customers a full overview of their health
- Allows app users to tackle two or more journeys at the same time (eg. being more active and reducing stress)