Cycles - Period Tracking Application
An application designed to connect directly to a user’s Electronic Health Record. The application enables users to learn more about their own health, as well as allowing them to share data directly with their medical providers.
Introduction
Background
Industry: Healthcare Technology
Company: Epic Systems
Title: UX Design Intern
Product line: Mobile App
My Role
I was the sole end-to-end UX/Product designer but worked in conjunction with a software development intern.
Constraints
Time: The internship was 11 weeks, with 10 of those being working weeks for the project.
Resources: There was no funding for internship projects so we had to rely on internal resources (when they were available) for all steps of the project
Knowledge: I came in with no prior knowledge of what I was designing for, and the software development intern I worked with had never programmed for iOS.
Project framing
Overview
Cycles started as an internship project for Epic Systems, an Electronic Healthcare records company. The goal of the project was to build a Period Tracking application that lived as part of the MyChart mobile application.
Problem Statement
Almost 50% of the world's population have or will have a period in their lifetime. Currently digital tools to help track and predict periods are available but are often inaccurate, aren’t inclusive of those outside of a defined “norm,” and - most importantly - there is no good way to give all of this information to their physicians. In this project, I designed an application that accommodates users who aren’t regular or experience disruptions to their normal cycle, allows the logging of symptoms and their severity, all while writing this information to their medical chart so their doctors will have access.
Research
Source: https://coconutsandkettlebells.com/training-with-your-menstrual-cycle/
Background Research
Since this subject is not something that I have prior knowledge in, I did extensive research on:
Menstrual cycles
Periods
Menopause
Pregnancy
Birth control
OBGYN and other related office visits
Inclusivity in reproductive language
Competitive Analysis
After the initial research phase, I looked at 12 different existing applications in the Apple app store that were the most popular. For this, I walked through the application as if I was a new user to get a better understanding of the user journey and pain points as well as identify areas for improvement.
Discoveries
Logged information isn’t easy to communicate to your provider
Design and iconography is usually stereotypically gendered and not inclusive
Logging of symptom severity was uncommon
Lack of good visualizations regarding logged symptoms
User Survey
Based on the background research and competitive analysis, we crafted a user survey to help better understand tracking habits and goals of the users. Specifically, we wanted a better understanding of how often users were tracking, what information was important for them to track, and try to better understand why specific information was useful. Also, we hoped to identify some roadblocks for those who weren’t currently tracking.
Methodology
Digital survey via Surveymonkey
Respondents remained anonymous
Distributed via email and over the course of two weeks we had about 100 responses.
Results
75% of respondents were 30 or under and were employed full-time
97% identified as female, and 3% non-binary
50% currently tracked with a mobile application already, 25% didn’t track at all, and 12% tracked using their birth control
When asked further about why user didn’t track, there were a couple of themes:
Found it too difficult to track with current methods
Was inaccurate because they weren’t regular
Privacy concerns
31% tracked daily and 87% spent 10 minutes or less tracking
Beyond the data and themes above, respondents also frequently mentioned being able to track symptoms and severity easily as well as the ability to see trending data. Most also mentioned tracking to better understand their own bodies and menstrual trends in order to try to predict and properly plan for activities (travel, work, fitness/sports).
Design, Development and revisions
After all of the research, I began nailing down the workflows and design of application. I had been sketching, wireframing, and outlining workflows based on my own research and some of the early survey responses.
There were numerous iterations of the design and during this process I received weekly feedback from my manager and mentor, as well as holding two intensive design incubators.
During this time I also worked with the Software Development Intern to ensure that the prototype was in-line with design decisions, take input to ensure workflows were in-line with our software’s capabilities, and create alternative designs to ensure we had a functional prototype before the end of the summer.
A sample of initial sketches of the overview (main) page that influenced later designs
Final User Interviews
For this final round of user research we arranged interviews with 4 of initial survey respondents in order to test the clarity and usefulness of the data visualizations, predictive data, and other secondary workflows. This was accomplished through basic user testing with printed versions of high-fidelity mockups and some basic guiding questions.
Takeaways
Users responded well to the design and theme, felt that it was fun and inclusive while not reminding users of why they were in the application.
All of the respondents loved the main workflows, especially the predictive symptoms and ability to log a disruption
An area of improvement identified in the interviews was the data trending page, specifically the context of the data
Features
Onboarding
A quick 4 to 5 question process that allows us to gather important information for the predictive algorithms, and introduces the user to different interface operations within the application.
Overview
Shows the entirety of one cycle, has ease of navigation inspired by circular birth control packages, and allows users to jump from cycle to cycle quickly.
Quick Logging
Options for simply quick logging the start and end of your period. Once the users enters a Strat date it will update the predicted duration and end date based on that data.
Logging
Options for simply quick logging the start and end of your period, but also for more extensive logging of symptoms and severity. Both of these processes were designed to be as fast as possible.
Analysis page
Allows users to see logged and predicted severity in an easy visual, and also dive deeper to view each symptom over time and multiple cycles.
Calendar page
A place where the user can view previous and predicted periods in a calendar view, but also view data about each day.
Final Walk-through
Outcomes and lessons
The project was well received by numerous people throughout the company, and will be shown to customers during the customer expo this fall. I believe that they will be moving forward with development of the project and will roll it out within the next year.
This project got very far over the course of only 10 weeks, and the Software Development Intern and I set the framework for a great application. In the ten weeks, we were able to design an application that packed a lot of features in while still making them accessible to users.
The feedback received from many users, other employees, and interviewees was excitement because of features that would arm them with useful knowledge about their own health, and the ease of communicating this information to their doctors.
There are still refinements to be made overall which could have been achieved with more time and further user testing with a prototype. I also tried to design with the future in mind, to allow for expansion of features and uses within female reproductive health beyond just the menstrual cycle.