Drug prescription delivery feature on a Medical app
During the COVID-19 global pandemic period economies around the world experienced major challenges some of which restricted movements of their citizens in order to contain the spread. Digital Health Technology can be very effective as a tool to combat the spread of the virus during the pandemic period, it can also help in reducing stress after the pandemic period. In this article ill be sharing my design process on a drug prescription delivery feature on a medical app that allows patients to either request a new prescription or renew their prescription.
Have you ever been in a situation where you visited the pharmacy, but the pharmacist wasn't available? Or maybe you took a prescription to the pharmacy and wasn't available? Are you just too busy to visit the pharmacy? Or are you the type that forgets to take your medication as at when due? Probably you are just as lazy as I am to go to the pharmacy.
If you are familiar with the above-mentioned scenarios, then you will probably like my idea.
What are medical apps?
Medical apps are software on a mobile device that functions as an accessory to a regulated medical device or transform a mobile platform into a regulated medical device. In other words: These apps can help patients manage their own health and help healthcare practitioners facilitate and improve patient care.
Design Process
UCD is an iterative design process in which designers focus on the users and their needs in each phase of the design process in order to create highly usable and accessible products for them.
In order to integrate the new feature, I started by in the position of a potential patient that wants to request for a new/renew their prescription on the app, In doing so I researched about the steps required to complete the task which I collated into an hypothetical journeymap.
A journey map is a visualization of the process that a person goes through in order to accomplish a goal. In its most basic form, journey mapping starts by compiling a series of user actions into a timeline.
I made some assumptions about the app having a pre existing educating onboarding screen to educate users on features of the app as well as other medical terms like Rx which means prescription, Other assumtions were Login/Signup Screen and User Profile. Also I looked into the cons and pros of similar existing apps within our geographic region (Nigeria). Also, I reached out to a pharmacist who was a friend to learn about their ethics.
Then I gathered more information on more features that would make this the best solution on drug prescription delivery, those features includes:
Uploading prescription: This enable users to upload picture of their prescription from their phones gallery and have them reviewed by a pharmacist.
Drug details: to help users read detailed description of each medication.
Search for substitute: This enable users to find generic alternatives to the name brand medication
Medicine reminder: to help remind patients on when to take their prescription by notifying them with an alarm within the app.
Chat: so users can get in touch with a pharmacist to provide them with answers to any questions they might have.
After have compiled information necessary I started representing my ideas with a sketch. Sketching is a very efficient way of communicating design while allowing designers to try out a multitude of ideas and iterate them before settling on one, it is a crucial yet often overlooked aspect of the design process.
User Testing
At this stage I ran a fast and efficient usability testing through which i validated the solution. during this stage, i gave the the prototype to my test subject (i met with people trying to buy drugs at the pharmacy), i explained my objective to them, they tried using it, then i asked them to rate their experience about the prototype based n two key factors (effectiveness and efficiency) in the end inquired the reason for the ratings they gave. All this was to help improve the users experience.
Below were some of their comments and observations.
(i) The process feels smooth and easy.
(ii) The interface looks modern.
(iii) I will never miss a medication with this
(iv) This would really save me some stress
(v) Everything is clear.
