Benten Technologies
-
My Role
I worked with a team of several other UX Designers for six weeks. We closely collaborated with the company’s Product Manager, and were overseen by the Project Manager and President.
-
Design Problem
Benten Technologies was designing an app for informal caregivers to people living with Alzheimer’s and related dementia. How might we make the app more usable for the target audience - people in their 50s-70s who may or may not be technologically savvy?
-
Design Solution
We increased accessibility in several ways, including reducing cognitive load on screens, increasing font size, reorganizing content for easier navigation, and streamlining the process of tracking medications.
Introduction
Benten Technologies is a large, established company creating a new, innovative app designed for caregivers of people living with Alzheimer’s and related dementia. Caregivers might include spouses, children, partners or other loved ones of the person living with dementia, and typically are in the age range of 50s-70s. The app would help caregivers track medications, mood, triggers, appointments, and basic needs like food and water, socialize with other caregivers, as well as provide resources to learn about disease progression, interventions, and strategies.
This six-week project started with a version of the app created by previous designers for us to improve upon and make a new iteration to hand off to the next team of designers in order to get the best end product. Throughout the project we reorganized the information architecture, produced user flows, designed wireframes for how different features would operate, and led usability testing to validate design decisions.
Information Architecture
Benten Technologies is a large, established company creating a new, innovative app designed for caregivers of people living with Alzheimer’s and related dementia. Caregivers might include spouses, children, partners or other loved ones of the person living with dementia, and typically are in the age range of 50s-70s. The app would help caregivers track medications, mood, triggers, appointments, and basic needs like food and water, socialize with other caregivers, as well as provide resources to learn about disease progression, interventions, and strategies.
This six-week project started with a version of the app created by previous designers for us to improve upon and make a new iteration to hand off to the next team of designers in order to get the best end product. Throughout the project we reorganized the information architecture, produced user flows, designed wireframes for how different features would operate, and led usability testing to validate design decisions.
Information Architecture
My designer coworkers and I began by individually examining all of the content and features of the app, with special emphasis on the educational resources, and organizing it in a way that made sense to each of us. The goal was to arrange the educational content covering Alzheimer’s, dementia, and caregiving into easily navigable and searchable categories so the desired answers or discussions could be quickly found. Whereas before popular categories of information were organized alphabetically, we elected to change the navigation to two main areas of educational content: one about the disease, organized from detection to severe/late stages, and one for the caregiver, offering tips and support for the caregiver. By changing the content organization to match disease stage, it shortened the time users spent searching for popular categories in a long alphabetical list. For example, if a caregiver searched for “wandering”, a common behavior for people living with dementia, the user would have to scroll all the way down to the ‘w’ section formerly which may be considered tiresome, but “wandering” could be found quicker in the shorter mid-late stage sections. Alternatively, if the caregiver isn’t sure what to search for, they could get an idea of common behaviors by looking at the current stage of the disease. To the side is a map of the app content. Note: PWLD is an abbreviation for People Living with Dementia.
We also changed the content organization of the app’s bottom navigation bar. Originally, the bottom navigation bar contained four buttons: home, learn, community, track. We added a button called “Schedule” which brings up medication times as well as upcoming appointments. We also were informed from prior research that some male caregivers were averse to the features of mood tracking and diary entries, viewing it as feminine. To address that concern we renamed the feature to “Log” and added the option to add notes but did not require it or label it as a diary. Male testers did not mention feeling hesitant to use the log and notes features in the usability test.
New
Old
User Story Map
My next task in the team was to create a user story map highlighting what features we wanted the app to have, and what steps the user would take to accomplish their desired tasks. This map greatly informed us what screens we would need to wireframe in our next steps. The features we chose to focus on in this Minimal Viable Product (MVP) were tracking of moods, triggers, medications, and appointments, researching educational content, and socializing in the community. To the right is the user story map of common user tasks.
Wireframing
My team and I divided up the necessary screens between us and I focused on the log feature, including a log for the caregiver as well as the person living with dementia. The caregiver’s log monitors basic needs like getting meals, medication, water, and sleep, in addition to their mood and any notes. The log for the person living with dementia would also be completed by the caregiver: it includes the above categories as well as monitoring of possible triggers and the ensuing behaviors that the caregiver observed. Our iteration of this app changed the reporting of the wellbeing of caregiver and patient in several ways. Initially, the app only tracked the mood of the caregiver, and no other information. Realizing that mood can be affected by a range of factors like lack of sleep or skipping meals or medications we knew we needed to collect more data for a richer picture. We also agreed that the status of the person living with dementia would likely affect the mood of the caregiver as well, or vice versa. Thus, we added the monitoring of possible triggers and behavior exhibited by the person living with dementia. Monitoring triggers could help avoid them in the future, and recording behaviors may help the caregivers report to the healthcare team what they are observing. We also added more detail to the mood tracking. Originally, the user would select an emoji that looked like their mood to record emotions. We decided to keep that action, but added small chips below the emojis with various identifiers that could help tag more diverse emotions. For example, the user could select a neutral face emoji and then choose the tag “lost” or “confused” to add more context to the emoji. The users were also given the chance to add notes on the mood to give additional details. After the users enter in all of the needed information, they are shown the collected data visually for a time period, such as a week or month, giving them a high level view and trends. Below are the wireframes of the log feature.
Usability Testing
I conducted usability testing virtually along with Benten Technologies’ product designer to three participants. We walked the participants through the wireframe screens and focused especially on the changes we made to the product. We were lucky to have helpful and forthcoming participants that had impactful insights based on their experiences as caregivers. Some main takeaways for my contributions to the app included adding personalization to the log feature. Each participant saw different categories as important to document and wished for different frequencies (e.g. daily, weekly, monthly) of capturing that data. They agreed that selecting the frequency and types of data collected the first time they opened the log feature would solve their problems. Another takeaway revolved around language: the participants agreed that they would prefer seeing their loved one’s name instead of a person living with dementia, or the abbreviation PLWD. They decided having the user entering the name of their loved one in onboarding would address that issue.
Challenges and Lessons Learned
This was my first experience working on a team of UX designers as opposed to being solo or in a pair. It was rewarding having others to bounce ideas off of and ask questions, and I enjoyed hearing their differing opinions. It did pose challenges being that we were in different time zones, with differing schedules, when it came time to schedule meetings or collaborate. We overcame these challenges by using Slack as a work management tool, and delegating tasks suited to our strengths so we could work independently at our convenience. If one of us was unable to all attend a meeting, we recorded the meeting so the other could be kept informed. Throughout our collaboration I learned to be unafraid of asking questions or to request clarification. With various communication styles it is important to be clear on what is being said and meant, and what is expected. It is much better to feel insecure for a few seconds asking a question than to waste time working on a wrong step for the product.