Carevise: A New Approach to Supportive Medical Care

Here, I’m going to walk you through the Carevise app and the collaborative process that led to its creation. This app is a mobile platform that directly connects users with medical professionals or “Care Guides” who can give advice, points them towards specialized resources, and provides support like questions to ask their doctor when attending appointments. 

But more on that later. Let’s first start at the beginning.

The Problem

As many of us have probably experienced ourselves or with a loved one, receiving a medical diagnosis can be stressful and scary. For those who don’t have a lot of experience in this area, this is only magnified by not knowing where to find help outside of a Google search or knowing how to navigate complicated medical bureaucracies in the United States. This is especially true during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many have lapsed in their regular checkup schedules and are unsure of how long they should wait before trying to seek out professional care. At this current moment, medical care is often colored by fear and anxiety.

Preliminary Research

To identify solutions that could lessen this uncertainty, I personally conducted 6 interviews with potential users in March 2021. These interviews were coded and compared with 10 other interviews done by other students working on the medical diagnosis team. Analysis led me to hone in on the following themes:

• Frustration with doctors and cookie cutter interactions 

• Confusing medical system (finding providers that are in-network, knowing what questions to ask in appointments, deciding on best treatments, etcetera)

• Reliance on themselves and their own information searches above all else

My teammates and I also collectively identified two user archetypes: 

• “The Researcher:” Someone who wants to do their own research to make sure they are making the best choices for their health and considers themself to be very tech savvy.

• The “Support Seeker:” Someone who identifies as needing help but is overwhelmed and doesn’t know where to turn. This could either be a patient or caregiver.

Design Goals

These user needs and behaviors, many of which coalesce around issues of access, trust, and information, inspired the following goals in app design:

• Provide those experiencing a medical diagnosis with a dedicated medical expert who can act as a sort of advocate or cheerleader 

• Create an easy way to track user health journeys and interactions with doctors and other providers

• Lessen user anxiety and isolation during a difficult time 

Early Wireframes, Prototyping, and Usability Testing

So the big question now is, how do we address these goals via design? A few different ways. One priority that was important to me during the wireframe phase was having a simple UI that would lead the user step-by-step through onboarding and other app processes. This was done to ensure that the solution could speak to both identified archetypes and differing levels of tech use and familiarity. 

Early wireframes (some included here on the left) included features such as the health questionnaire a user would take while onboarding, advocate assignment, and a patient toolbox, which operated as a home page and had other features like a symptom tracker and resource library.

Feedback at every stage of development was critical to this design and resulted in some significant changes. During concept testing in April 2021, I discovered that 75% users desired the ability to choose their advocate rather than having one automatically assigned to them. This made sense, given the personal nature of such a relationship. In addition, users wanted to be able to archive conversations with their advocate to refer to them later. Usability testing in May 2021 also revealed small changes I needed to make to my prototype to improve navigation and the hand tracking experience.

Carevise Final Design

Given this data and users’ general dissatisfaction with the depersonalization of medical care, I wanted to convey a calming but vibrant feel and focus on themes of human connection. I also felt like it was important to differentiate Carevise from other medical apps, which are typically very sterile looking, use similar color palettes, and generally just aren’t very visually welcoming. With those market factors in mind, my design prioritized a soft color palette, rounded component edges, human illustrations, and a repeated visual motif of hands.

User Feedback

“Wow, I really wish this was a real app!”

“I like that it doesn’t feel clinical. So much of the process of trying to talk to a doctor feels really robotic and alienating, which is kind of ironic. I could definitely see myself being attracted to this idea if I ever got sick again.”

“Both the design and the idea of having a Care Guide who is really in your corner is a game changer.”

Reflection

Anthropologists, who are deeply embedded in the worlds of their research participants, are uniquely positioned to step into the UX space and solve both social and design inequities through rigorous qualitative methods. This is especially true when designing solutions that attempt to address systemic problems, such as those found in the medical industry—it’s not enough to just know how to conduct an interview or code insights from individual users. One also needs to have a thorough understanding of the worlds in which they are operating and approach problems with systems thinking in order to actually see the world critically, be aware of the arbitrariness of conventions and norms, and be attuned to the workings of power, relationships, identities, and inequalities affecting design and use. I thoroughly enjoyed this process, and hope to continue this kind of work in the future!