AI-assisted
Live
UI Design
VTHacks App
Elevating the registration experience across user groups
TIMELINE
2 weeks
ROLES
UI Designer, Developer
TEAM
UX Research Team of 4
SKILLS
Formative Evaluation
Overview
The Client
Along With You is a non-profit client that distributes journal and paper prototypes and was seeking a digital healthcare app prototype. Originating from a USAID One Health project, its mission is to support patients and families through difficult medical diagnoses with a compassionate, accessible companion experience.
The Task
Design an emergency-first healthcare app prototype that streamlines care management across multiple providers by consolidating patient portals, medical records, medications, diagnoses, and important health information into one accessible platform.
Constraints
Limited access to healthcare participants constrained the depth of user research.
Focused designing for one persona, despite having multiple roles.
Before we dive in…
RESEARCH
The core problem surfaced early:
ANALYSIS
Affinity mapping
Raw interview data
88 work activity notes in
parent-child themes.
We also incorporated client-sourced data from a prior paper prototype study, which was what this project initially stemmed from.
Patients had no mental model for which portal held which records, leading to forgotten credentials and missed information at critical moments.
Responders needed critical details like allergies and current medications surfaced instantly, not buried behind a login.
Varying naming conventions across portals made navigation unpredictable, especially for vulnerable users.
Managing a dependent's care required role-appropriate access without compromising patient autonomy or privacy.
Persona strategy and setting the scene
USABILITY TESTING
A Figma click-through prototype was built from low-fidelity sketches and a physical paper mockup. The prototype covered the app's core task flows.
Quantitative research methods we used
Scaling incrementally in difficulty to measure task completion accuracy, execution speed (seconds), or error rates
Subjective assessment to measure the perceived mental, physical, and temporal workload a user experiences while performing a task.
When collecting our subjective data during the empirical evaluation, we found some positive design choices and some areas of improvement.
Possible user conclusions we made
Novel apps reduce initial intuitiveness
The app progressively became easier to use, disproving the benchmark thesis
Lack of prior knowledge of the app limitation
Varied user mental models influenced expectations
Potential changes + Evaluation
COST IMPORTANCE TABLE
Buttons difficult to click
Difficult finding portal info
Lack of familiar patterns
Increase button padding/add icons
Group similar, recognizable information
Include onboarding experience
REFLECTION
Project Takeaways
Navigating the scope and weighing tradeoffs — With a broad, yet exciting client prototype, many ideas, and 4-months timeline, we had to scope out the tasks and focus efforts only on the screens that would be "used" the most.
Putting yourself in the interviewee’s shoes is half of the battle — Broad questions give vague answers. Before finalizing interview questions, answer them yourself. If there aren't clear insights, refine the question and jot down follow-ups.
Have designated interviewer roles — One interviewer, and one note-taker. This specific designation allowed us to focus on observations, their active user journey, and collecting think-aloud feedback.
Learning human factors from engineering standpoints— This was a systems engineering environment, so compared to traditional HCI, I learned about their own processes and how disciplines execute very similar work. Notably, the quantitative tests like NASA-TLX and Cost Importance Table was very new to me, but I plan to take this to my design studies.
The project was successfully
in December 2025.