Tricella
Tools: Sketch, Sketchbook, Design Thinking, Moscows Chart, Teamwork, Surveys, Prototyping, Calendaring Mapping, Agile Product Management
Duration: 2.5 weeks
Overview:
Tricella is a smart pillbox that connects to a mobile app through bluetooth to remind the user to take their medication. When it becomes time to take a particular set of pills the correct compartment will illuminate to remind the user to take the medication. Through the mobile app you can add a care circle (friends and family that can monitor your medication intake to help you stay on track.
The Challenge:
Current on boarding process is cumbersome due to multiple steps. The steps included setting up your profile, pairing the physical pill box device, and adding your schedule.
The Solution:
Simplifying the on boarding process by minimizing data input and removing the dependence of the app on the pillbox.
Process:
Research:
We started by reviewing the competitors in the same field to understand the ease of their on-boarding process. The competitors who had the best program had the following features:
Medication library
Independent of device
Frequency / Quantity
Refill Reminder
Calendar view/ Snooze feature
Caregiver notification
Next, we surveyed 50 people asking twelve questions related to frequency of use and their personal reminder system. In addition we interviewed people who take multiple medications daily and caregivers the same questions.
We discovered that the majority put their medicine in a place where the can see it (i.e. kitchen counter) so it became a part of their morning or evening routine. Most people surveyed were voluntarily taking medication or vitamins to improve their health and their daily routine is set in stone. However people did find the app useful when they had demanding or disrupted schedules and needed the reminders.
Finally, we found people had a good system with their local pharmacy. Most pharmacy’s have great reminder systems to re-fill their medication. Also, people like using the plastic pill boxes that have the day of the week on it to take the pills on the correct day.
Personas:
Prioritization:
Design:
We tested our initial wireframes to see where the users was having trouble.
Insights gained:
The medication data input page was asking too much information to be input at once. It was confusing to people what info was needed to be filled out and completed.
Users were unsure how many more steps they had to fill out as they were going through the on boarding process.
The design of the weekly calendar view that we had was confusing to people.
While we tested our prototype with various users we also had them test a competitor app to see what they liked about it and to see which was easier to use. We timed the users using both apps to see which one was the simplest to complete. The redesign of our prototype in comparison was on average 16 seconds faster, which was a 10% improvement as shown below.
Considerations:
When designing the app we wanted it to be to simple and easy to use because we know from the users taking medication is not necessarily fun or easy. Every screen has one step with helpful hints.
Tricella’s uses a lot of pastel colours and we found these colors very difficult to read for people with disabilities. We re-designed the app following WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), and made the text at least a font size of 18, with a dark navy colour which is easy for people to read. We achieved a minimum AA rating.
For ease of on-boarding we only required the essential information and made changes to the app design for optional features like pharmacy refill and care circles.
Redesign Prototype:
Possible Next Steps:
The open pharmacy Application Program Interface (API) would help improve the efficiency of onboarding and have additional functionality for the user:
Barcode scanner can simplify the manual inputs and import more data.
Visual reminders can show the shape and color of what the pill looks like to reduce the manual input errors of the users.
Advance features like Pharmacy refills can be automated.