ReCO
The focus in healthcare and health insurance is usually on those that are already patients due to mental or physical illness, but by helping people before they become sick and keeping a focus on them afterwards, more people can stay healthy. With depression once you’ve had one depressive episode you have 60 % chance of another.
Help Alm Brand gather insights and innovate a new kind of health-tech to keep the healthy healthy.
ReCo – A tool for people recovering from a depressive episode. Through conducting interviews and workshops with people that have experienced depressive episodes we gathered insights into how a piece of health-tech would be able to help them.
We created an app that addressed several concerns: Helping structuring their day through planning and nudging, registration of warning signs to avoid them having another depressive episode and easy access to a psychiatrist should one be needed.
We constructed a high-fidelity prototype using Figma and introduced our participants to the operative image of the full app using a horizontal mockup as well as conducted a usability test of two parts of the app through vertical prototyping. We also created lower fidelity prototyping, but due to Covid all of our testing had to be done online, which necessitated mainly online, high fidelity prototyping and usability testing.
We were chosen as one of three groups to have our idea and prototype be a part of Alm Brand’s health-tech idea catalogue.
Design Process
Research of the field
We decided to focus on those that have had a depression, given the risk for a relapse. We researched challenges and tools within the field.
Interviews with (potential) users
To dive deeper into the field we conducted semi-structured individual interviews with three people, who had had a depression as wells as professionals working in the field.
Workshops
We carried out workshops in collaboration with those affected by depression. Alongside them we explored possible tools and aids to help those with depression, as well as the importance of layout, communication and tone of voice in apps.
Prototyping & testing
We created two levels of prototypes that we reviewed with our participants to receive feedback for further work. We first worked with a storyboard and then with vertical and horizontal prototyping.
Workshops
We conducted two workshops with two participants, that both had diagnosed depressive episodes. Due to corona shutdowns we conducted our workshops online using Skype to talk with our participants and Mural to work creatively with them. Due to these restrictions we also decided only to work with two participants, as the online setting made effective communication more difficult.
Good Apps/Bad apps - Workshop
First we conducted a Good Apps/Bad Apps workshops, where we discussed existings apps with the participants. We discussed four different themes: Interface, tone of voice, options for personalization and usability. Each theme was explained afterwhich the participant placed the apps in either good or bad apps. This was followed up with probing questions and discussions among the participants.
We conducted this workshop to explore which parts of current apps the participants liked and disliked, to investigate what we should keep and change in our app design.
Inspiration Card Workshop
The second workshop was inspired by the method Inspiration Card Workshop by Halskov and Dalsgaard, though it was altered slightly due to the digital workaround.
We created a set of domain- and technology cards in Mural, which represented different technologies that might be useful and different domains, where they might be used. We explained the thought behind these to our users and then collaborated with them to combine the cards to created new ideas and uncover new areas of their experience with depression.
Learnings
Both workshops worked well, but we unfortunately had not set aside enough time for them, as they ended up working better than expected. As this was our first time conducting workshops, it was a good learning opportunity for us. The three main insights we got regarding the design process was:
1. The importance of having a proficient and active moderator to help start, lead and control the conversation. I as moderator used reflection-in-actions and took a leading role in the workshops, to help start a conversation between our participants.
2. The creation of a ‘third space’ online, which was also helped along by the moderator. The creation fo the ‘third space’ help participants open up, get creative and offer thoughts and ideas.
3. The dynamic between the participants. Our participants did not know each other, which affected the workshop and the way they worked together. This was reinforced by the digital aspect of the workshops, though that did help them remain anonymous to each other. The participants began to get to know each other during the workshop, which helped them open up.
Prototyping
We conducted a form of iterative prototying with our potential future users. First we created a storyboard of our idea, which served as the first externalization of our artefact. This served mostly as a piece for the users to critique and to see if we had managed to incorporate their ideas into reality.
Afterward we created a higher fidelity, interactive prototype, which gave us the chance to focus on the specific functionality of the app.
We focused on two parts of the functionality: “This Weeks Goals” and “Warning Signs” and were especially interested in testing the functionality, interactivity and spatial structure.
We would have created more iterative prototypes, but due to corona-restrictions all testing had to be done online, and thus needed to be digitally interactive. We created this vertical prototype using Figma, as we knew that we had to both create and test the prototype digitally
