UX Designer Mike
About This Designer
Subside — Case Management System
Introduction
When I was approached to contribute to the Subside user experience, I emphatically accepted the task. An opportunity to help healthcare providers increase their capacity to help patients with acute pain management needs was just too great to pass up.
Prior to me joining the team, business analysts had already conducted a form of contextual inquiry and generated user interface mockups. However, these efforts were performed with little or no attention to the overall Subside user experience. Too much attention was paid to business requirements and reporting capabilities rather than the contextual and platform constraints imposed on users.
Subside's stakeholders knew that in order to produce a marketable and sustainable product, Subside needed a design strategy with more focus on user goals and activities.
Product Definition
Subside gives Anesthesiologists providing acute pain management services (APMS) the ability to retrieve, maintain, and review pertinent patient data such as vital signs, medications, pain scores, and treatment complications. Additionally, Subside provides the ability for APMS staff to analyze historical treatment data and treatment outcomes for the purpose of identifying effective pain management scenarios. Subside helps providers ensure repeatable, positive results for optimal patient care.
This definition became more succinct through each iteration.
Personas
Subside is targeted toward the following personas:
- Physicians practicing anesthesiology in conjunction with APMS
- Nurses supporting patient care activities within the APMS unit
- Medical Directors overseeing the performance of APMS activities
Persona models were informed by contextual inquiry and non-directed interviewing techniques. Subside's primary persona is "Phil the Physician".
Phil the PhysicianPlatform
Healthcare providers access Subside through wireless tablet devices. Commonly known as Tablet PCs, this platform enables APMS staff to utilize Subside in a variety of settings:
- Attending to the patient at bedside
- Performing an epidural or nerve block procedure in the operating room
- Outpatient follow-up
- Admin environments like nurse's stations and physician's offices
Primary design considerations for the tablet device platform include touch interaction (with a stylus pen or finger) and mobility. Considerations for mobility include energy consumption and frequent mental context switching inherent among healthcare practitioners. Physicians and Nurses shoulder an incredible amount of responsibility at any given time and Subside supports them by providing comprehensive, timely, specific data. Subside also embodies a streamlined, task based interface.
Activity Model
Through the creation and distribution of an activity model, designers answer with some certainty who the target audience is and what actions and operations they will perform. This model also helps the product team identify features and tools to support actions. For example, the action patient consultation is supported by a comprehensive list of available patients sorted by room number.
Like a persona model, activity models are informed by contextual inquiry and non-directed interviews. Activity models are a synthesis of mental models and the activity theory framework.
Activity ModelUser Flow
Specific actions and/or operations can be visualized and vetted among the product team in the form of user flows. These are a great way to identify decision points and low-level interactions people may engage in with the user interface. User flows also help identify additional opportunities for features in the system involving automation, calculations, and the creation of other system actors that reduce cognitive overload.
Nine out of ten times user flows are drawn on a white board with domain experts present, and finally captured with a digital camera for archival purposes.
User FlowScreen Types
Screen types are informed by what type of action a user is taking with the system. This provides a contextual view for managing persistent datasets within a specific operation flow. For example, during a patient consultation our Physician needs to document a Patient's allergies. Even though the Physician's context has temporarily shifted to managing allergies and their associated allergic reactions, Subside keeps the navigation context within patient consultation. Once finished with the dataset modification, the Physician simply taps 'Continue' to return to patient consultation.
For most actions, a core set of two or three screen layouts will represent the ideal patterns for displaying data required for decision-making and task fulfillment.
Screen Types (4 total)
Conclusion
In conclusion... there is no conclusion. The designer remains engaged on a product until that designer is replaced or the product ceases to exist. The user experience is an ongoing effort on any living, improving product.
Read the complete Design Decisions document (pdf) and Subside UI Style Guide (pdf).
For more thoughts on product design and production, visit openscreens.com.