Therapist Portal Dashboard
for a gamified tele-rehabilitation solution
Sole UX Researcher
Team: 1 UX Lead, 4 UX/UI Designers
ROLE
Oct 2023 - May 2024
DURATION
TOOLS
User Interviews
Affinity Mapping
Usability Testing
A/B Testing
Prototyping
METHODOLOGIES
HealingHand Tech
is an early stage medical technology startup dedicated to enhancing stroke rehabilitation accessibility by revolutionizing traditional occupational therapy home exercise programs (HEPs). Their approach integrates a wearable device with an interactive gamified mobile application to provide end-to-end treatment. The gamified app ensures an enjoyable virtual reality exercise experience, while providing therapists with real-time feedback, data insights and compliance tracking.
The Challenge
How can we support occupational therapists with providing an optimal tele-rehab treatment experience?
The Solution
Design an intuitive and user-friendly therapist portal dashboard that facilitates remote therapeutic monitoring services in combination with standard HEP features.
Subject Matter Experts in Occupational Therapy & Remote Therapeutic Monitoring
By the time I joined the team, the UX/UI Design team completed 80-90% of the high-fidelity wireframes for the minimum viable product. However, there were still a lot of unanswered questions related to the compliance of remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM) services within the therapist portal dashboard. These questions included:
One of the challenges I quickly found was finding OTs that fit this description and were willing to be interviewed to discuss their experience. After a few rounds, I was able to identify one participant who fit all three criteria areas. The insights from this 1-to-1 SME interview are the following:
I was brought on specifically to recruit, schedule and conduct user interviews with subject matter experts (SMEs) within this field. The criteria for user interviews included:
Round 2 of User Interviews
How might we streamline a patient-centric treatment process, improve communication between patients and therapists, and facilitate efficient tracking of progress?
OTs’ thoughts and insights about providing patient feedback and rewards on a weekly basis
?
How RTM services are implemented and patient progress is tracked via teletherapy sessions
?
Ways in which tele-rehabilitation and in-person outpatient billing differ
?
occupational therapists that have experience working in an outpatient setting
1
have treated or are currently treating the stroke population
2
experience with tele-rehabilitation intervention tools (including remote therapeutic monitoring services)
3
How might we streamline a patient-centric treatment process, improve communication between patients and therapists, and facilitate efficient tracking of progress?
For telerehabilitation services, it is absolutely vital to incorporate weekly check-ins to discuss therapy progress and provide continuous motivation.
Challenges in providing tele-rehabilitation services often differ from in-person treatment. For clinicians, telerehab services should be viewed as facilitating self-management skills.
When trialing a new device with a patient, OTs must check in with the patient 24 or 48 hours after the initial visit otherwise the patient is less likely to use it at all.
Although telerehab services are limited (i.e. clinician can only provide services where the patient is receiving care), remote therapeutic services can happen anywhere and with everyone.
Therapist Portal: Information Architecture
Using the data obtained from the user interview, the UX Design team was able to iterate on the final designs of the portal dashboard before moving into usability testing. The key insights led to further refinement of the weekly check-in feature.
Design Iterations
How might we streamline a patient-centric treatment process, improve communication between patients and therapists, and facilitate efficient tracking of progress?
Before SME Interview
After SME Interview
It was unclear what information was absolutely necessary to view on this page.
Key insights found that there should be greater emphasis on self-reported data metrics including compliance rate, success rate and mood tracker.
How might we streamline a patient-centric treatment process, improve communication between patients and therapists, and facilitate efficient tracking of progress?
Planning Research + Goals
Usability Testing
Once the high-fidelity wireframes were finalized, I was tasked with conducting usability tests for five different task flows. The link to the full usability test results presentation for key stakeholders (CEO and CTO) can be found here.
Remote usability tests via Zoom
5 participants
Criteria: Occupational therapists with outpatient stroke experience
Usability Insights
Evaluate the overall usability of five different task flows within HHT’s Therapist Portal Dashboard
Observe target user (i.e. occupational therapists) behavior when interacting with a high-fidelity prototype and collect insights on user flow experience
Gather feedback on user interface, visual design and data visualization charts
Identify pain points participants encounter while encountering with the Therapist Portal Dashboard
Participant 4, Outpatient OT
Older folks have trouble connecting how their movements affect the game. Human aspect makes a difference with understanding what they’re doing.
100% thought the onboarding tutorial easy to understand and more straightforward than current healthcare portals
“It’s a good overview of the titles that you see. Ending with the alerts is nice since it’s a safety feature and a good way of communication to your coworkers what is going on.”
33% found assigning wearable device too complicated and could be simplified
“I found the sizes helpful, but the serial number and name, not to much. I’d find the devices availability status more useful.”
83% preferred program builder B when developing patient’s home exercise program
“I liked the template aspect of the A version, but I thought B was a bit more efficient. It’s nice how goals relate to the exercises, but what if the patient has one that isn’t supported here?”
100% thought the Break Trigger Moment* was a great safety feature, particularly for patient with poor safety awareness
“I wish more applications had a focus on safety. If I had a patient encounter a BTM, I would want to know more about their pain.”
50% identified the weekly check-in as an extra item that would be added to their work flow
“This is helpful to have, but I anticipate frustrations with this because OTs already have to do a lot of documentation within their own systems.”
100% questioned the utility of the mood tracker as stroke patients may not be entirely forthcoming when it comes to sharing their mood
“I don’t know how honest patients will be when it comes to identifying their mood, especially stroke patients sometimes don’t like to be open about it..”
*Break Trigger Moment is defined as a moment where the patient’s pain exceeds a certain threshold (e.g. 7 out of 10)
Recommendations for Next Iteration
Include tutorial for new users when assigning a wearable chart to minimize cognitive load when completing the task
Incorporate visual aids (e.g. pictures, videos) whenever possible to apply a multi-modal approach and give patients a visualization of the movement they are being asked to perform
Allow option to skip movements if a patient is unable to perform movement due to limited mobility
When creating an exercise program, provide therapists with pre-built templates to make documentation workflow easier
Add a comment section in the mood tracker for patient’s to include context for why they might have selected a particular mood (e.g. “I had dialysis three times this week and I’m feeling tired when performing rehab exercises.”)
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