NeuronUP
UX Design | UI Design
The focus of this study was to observe the interactions of professional users (such as nurses, psychologists, therapists, and monitors) with the software. The aim was to uncover insights and opportunities for improvement to optimise the software based on the actions of a diverse range of real users
Tools like these are very helpful to therapists connect more effectively with their patients and also keep a record of their symptoms and monitor progress. - Nurse participant
Proposal
Challenge
Rehabilitation strategies can vary depending on the type of dementia and the cognitive abilities of each individual. At the same time, thanks to new technologies, people with mobility difficulties also have access to activities. Patients can prevent cognitive decline while simultaneously being entertained and learning. There are not many digital products out there with the technology or the focus to improve the usability around the users with cognitive disorders.
Key Objective
NeuronUp technology is at the service of the user. Thus, it is essential that the website and application have an excellent User-Centered Design (UCD). Therefore, the main goal is to gain better insights from professional users, who use the software in a regular basis to improve its efficiency and effectiveness in the usability of the software.
Insights
From the research phase and ideation to UI and implementation, I added some extra features to the NeuronUp software that allow users to navigate through the software making it as user-friendly as possible.
Role: UX/UI Designer
Tools: Figma, Adobe Illustrator, photoshop, Optimal workshop, Miro
Timeline: 5 months (September 2020 - January 2021)
Design Process
🔬 Research & Mapping
💡 Definition & Ideation
🚨 Problem Statement
🏗️ Architecture information
🤖 Prototyping & Testing
Research & Mapping 🔬
Study focus
This study is inspired by the lack of softwares that combine neurorehabilitation with technology and to prove how these two combined with a good user-friendly approach can help delay and prevent mental illnesses.
Goals
❌ Identify the problems professionals encounter when using the NeuronUp website.
🌤️ Determine opportunities to facilitate the website's use by professionals.
📌 Pinpoint the needs professionals have when using the website.
🖌️ Redesign the website based on the findings.
✅ Increase the success of the website.
Insights from Desk research & benchmarking
I believe that the scarcity of softwares with a good user experience brought me to get more in depth to this study. Therefore, the work of this study is important to add value to these existing tools. Even though I'm focusing solely on one (NeuronUP), I think it's important to continue researching this topic further.
I analysed the successes, failures, wins and opportunities of the current market.
Overall, there is considerable market within the sphere of neurorehabilitation. Although, they are not completed. Many are lacking of features that other possess and vice-versa. This methodology gives us the opportunity to bring some features to NeuronUP that probably we did not have before.
Users
There are two groups of users: the patients, in this case, elderly individuals, with or without cognitive impairment, who use the application (always guided by a professional), and the second group primarily consists of professionals (doctors, therapists, psychologists...) who use the website as work.
Interview Findings
I conducted 10 interviews selected based on a screening process to choose the profiles that best fit. The professional profiles required to be categorised as professional users included psychologists, occupational therapists, nurses, nursing assistants, monitors, and facilitators. All participants were between the ages of 28 and 50 who had interacted with NeuronUP and used it for their work.
"When patients were deeply focused on an activity and ran out of time, they became very confused." - Assistant monitor participant
"The ideal would be to combine the agility of the tablet with the size of the computer."
- Psychologist.
Needs
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Have the ability to navigate offline.
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Be able to enlarge images for better reading, add zoom options to better view images within the activity.
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Be able to change the difficulty of the activity without having to leave the sessions section.
Pain points
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Improve the section dedicated to functional activities and ADL (Activities of Daily Living), adding more content.
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Redesign the style of activities so they're not too childish, especially the ADLs.
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Easily separate the children's section from the adult's.
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Be able to change the difficulty of the activity without having to leave the sessions section.
Desires
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To be an application or have the ability to navigate offline.
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Redesign the style of activities so they're not too childish, especially the ADLs.
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Remove or hide non-essential information for those who only create sessions or those who only do activities.
Definition & ideation 💡
Empathy map
Doing
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Reading new articles about cognitive disorders.
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Spending time outdoors.
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Walking the dog.
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Assist to conferences related to their field.
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Reading books.
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Navigating through Social Media.
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Listening to music.
Thinking & Feeling
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I would like to be independent.
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I would like to study more.
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I want to help my patients.
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I want to make the life of my patients easier.
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I need to do more exercise.
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I want to be more valued at my work.
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I want to learn more about new softwares.
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I want that my patients see me as their friend.
Seeing
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Patients reports
from their email. -
Movies.
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Sessions listed in
the software. -
Rehab activities.
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Social Media.
Hearing
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Coworkers talking about work.
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Friends talking about their life.
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Music.
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Audiobooks
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Conferences
Pains
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Adapt to the newest trends.
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Time limitations.
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Bad internet.
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Limited knowledge in some fields.
Gains
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Improve patients mental health.
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Learning about new topics.
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Help people.
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Bring a better quality in their workspace
Personas
An archetypal user profile was created based on the information and knowledge obtained from real users, which served as a guide throughout the study. In this case, I recreated three different profiles, since there are different types of users with diverse professions, which will benefit us by providing a broader perspective.
User goals
🧠 Improve the quality of life for people with mental disorders.
💾 Adapt the software's activities to meet the patient's needs.
☀️ Enhance their patients' day-to-day lives and make their life easier.
👷🏻 Become the primary reference in his/her workplace.
💻 Use technologies such as NeuronUP more frequently to rehabilitate patients with mental health issues.
📚 Create adapted sessions according to their patients's necessities.
💯 Offer the best assistant quality to their patients.
🏗️ Build trust.
Scenarios & User Journeys
Scenarios help us contextualise the actions of users from their perspective, narratively describing in great detail the interaction our individuals have with the NeuronUP tool to achieve their goals.
User Journeys display step by step the user's interaction with the NeuronUP tool through a sequence of actions. They describe in detail the emotions and reactions of the users at each step they take when interacting with our system. Thanks to these activities, we gain a deeper understanding of the users' needs and requirements, bringing us closer to the primary objectives of this section.
I designed 3 proto-personas giving them values from the real professional user
Scenarios
User Journeys
Problem Statement 🚨
From the previous research, I've compiled the issues identified by professional users, as informed by proto-personas and user journeys:
🛜 Lack of an offline option.
🧩 Shortage of functional activities and basic activities of daily living (ADL).
🔎 Difficulty in reading images or statements within activities due to their size.
👤 Inability to memorise the user profile, making it hard to switch between child and adult modes.
📝 Challenges in editing the difficulty of an activity from sections.
ℹ️ Presence of non-essential information, which can be overwhelming for users.
🖨️ Confusing labelling.
What improvements can we integrate into the software, addressing the usability problems identified from the previous research?
Architecture 🏗️
Card Sorting
Given that this was already an existing product, I carried out a closed digital Card Sorting with the aim to confirm and improve the website's usability and architecture if users had difficulties finding certain elements.
There were 8 participants. Men and women, of different ages, who typically use NeuronUP.com or similar platforms.
Card Sorting results
• The option: 'compact information' card was added by 6 out of 8 participants in "Settings".
• The zoom option to enlarge the images was added by 6 out of 8 people in "Activities".
• The 'Offline Mode' was placed by 2 participants in "Sections" and by 6 in "Settings".
• 'Edit sessions' and 'edit session difficulty' were placed by 7 out of 8 participants in "Sections".
• There is total agreement on placing the adult sessions and children's sessions in "Settings".
Card Sorting photo example that the users had to sort out
Card sorting result
Tree testing
Furthermore, I conducted a Tree Testing to support the results of the Card Sorting, observing in a more detailed way the navigation that the users would do. This method primarily served as supporting evidence.
Results of 5 different navigation tests
User flows & Sitemap
Regarding the established architectural goals from the card sorting and tree testing exercises, I identified tasks and user flows that would meet our user persona's needs, desires, and goals within the context of her life journey. I then applied these flows to uncover an application sitemap to provide the most practical route to those goals. Leaving room for iteration.
3 different flow chart examples + Sitemap
Prototyping & Testing 🤖
Interaction design
After I was done with researching and analysing design patterns that fit the information architecture, business goals, and user needs, I sketched the solutions to our question from the problem statement. From sketches to wireframing and ending with the final prototyping via Figma.
First phase: I draw different sketches of NeuronUP's most notable pages where I had to apply the changes or add the options found during the research.
Second phase: Low-fidelity wireframes were created to evaluate interaction and capabilities. Even if the wireframes weren't finished at 100%, they were used to showcase the website's navigation. These tested the findings from the previous methodologies.
Sketches and Wireframes of the newest implementations in the software
Third phase: Development of medium and high-fidelity prototypes, which approach to the final UI. Aesthetic value such as colours, textures, decorations, effects was already included at this stage. Finally, it was made interactive so users could navigate the prototype as closely to reality as possible during the User Testing.
Hi-fi Desktop UI prototype
User testing:
This method allowed me to check if the interfaces and interaction processes are well-designed, while simultaneously observing if users encounter obstacles and difficulties in achieving their objectives. This allows us to make changes to the prototype if necessary.
By conducting tests with 5 users, we can detect 85% of the usability problems of an interface. User tests were conducted with 5 professionals who use NeuronUP, both men and women, ranging in age from 24 to 60 years.
User tests & SUS questionnaire (System Usability Scale) results:
Insights
- Incorporate the edit difficulty option from the "Edit features" section into the final prototype.
- Replace the filled-in square in the checkboxes with a box with a tick mark to activate/deactivate the option to make it more recognisable.
- Add an option to unsubscribe from news in settings to provide more flexibility.
- Add a component-type option to hide the sections for sessions or activities.
- It's necessary to increase the size of two items: one is the settings icon, and the other is the message to unsubscribe from news in the user profile.
4 examples of the SUS report from the User testing
Cognitive Walkthrough (CW)
As a UX Professional team, we did a cognitive walkthrough with the same tasks that were given to the professional users to do the tests. We found out to more insights from this phase.
- When activating the Offline mode, we noticed that there was missing a notification to alert the user when this option it's activated. Otherwise, the user might not know they need to click on restore results when reconnecting online, so I think a reminder should be added.
- Adding hide this section option can help users more dynamically get to their goal.
Heuristic evaluations according to Nielsen
8 out of 10 were considered good practice
Final Prototype insights
• Add a notification that will alert the user when they activate the Offline mode.
• Include the "hide this section" option in more sections, not only in the Settings section.
• Redesign the interaction of the checkbox.
• Add the option "unsubscribe from news" in Settings.
• Increase the size of the settings icon and highlight the message to "unsubscribe from news" within the user profile.