Overview

In 2014, NextGen Healthcare wanted to acquire an iPad application built on their platform to sell to their customers. I had 90 days to prove to the board of directors that I was capable of creating a more useful and desirable product.

My Role

• I led all aspects of the project for the first 90 days: stakeholder interviews, user research, concepting, prototyping, validation, and creating executive buy-in. I sold the idea to the board of directors, the CTO, and the VP of technology, who then gave me the resources to build a team to turn the vision to life.
• I hired a user researcher, a visual designer, a project manager, and helped hire three iOS developers.
• After the team was hired, I acted as product manager and strategist, defining the roadmap, working with both internal and external stakeholders to help the team move forward. I evangelized the product by speaking in front of 5000 customers at a user summit in Las Vegas.

Research

Research began with a deep dive into the our new domain: ambulatory doctor offices. We first conducted contextual research at an office conveniently located 15 minutes away. We expanded to 10 different sites across the country throughout the project. We observed every aspect of the office, including front office, back office, nurses, medical assistants, switchboard, MDs, PAs, billing, people who scanned paper files all day, and even patients.

In parallel, we conducted a competitive analysis: what did our competitors provide and what did people like or dislike about those products? We also collected feedback on our existing mobile application.

Synthesis

In the end, the team had collected gathered over 200 pages of written notes. Each visit concluded with a synthesis session in an effort to create shared knowledge between the researchers. Storytelling and affinity diagramming proved to be productive methods in rapidly emitting research insights. We brought these methods back to the main office to further educate the larger team (designers, developers, product management) on raw findings.

Analysis

Affinity diagramming was used to create high level themes that were used to drive early designs. Later, all our data was aggregated and coded. From here, the challenge was simplifying all our research and knowledge into easily digestible diagrams, or conceptual models. Our goal was to give any person, whether it be a new designer or manager to the team or even a client, a quick overview of our current state of knowledge. This proved useful in explaining to clients what we already knew so that they could identify, and focus on, knowledge we didn’t have. It also helped create shared knowledge for our design sessions.

Design Strategy

Throughout the project, we realized there were so many more opportunities for improvement and physician engagement than we were tackling with our current app. I created short and long term strategies for the design and product teams to keep us focused on meeting our primary deadline, but also acknowledging the bigger issues we wanted to address.

Ideation

“I am not the user.” A mantra we took to heart when designing NextGen Go. Most ideation sessions began with user input, whether it was a conceptual model, an affinity diagram, or even rough sketches developed through participatory design with a physician. I led a mass parallel design exercise for most major features. Each idea would be crudely drawn on a sticky note, with 5-20 ideas per participant. We heavily relied on collaborative sketching and metaphor analysis to produce ideas we wanted to pursue and prototype.

Validation

Prototypes of all fidelities were tested. Paper prototypes, low, mid, and hi-fi click-through prototypes, as well as functional HTML/JS prototypes. Our first prototype was tested in the hands of a physician after 10 days.

Iteration

Design, prototype, validate, repeat. A process all our features went through. E-prescribing (E-Rx) is currently a feature so cumbersome that physicians hire other staff to do it for them. Our goal was to design an E-Rx module that physicians would actually use, and want to use! Our efforts paid off when we finally heard the feedback: “perfect,” “this is great!” and “so when can I start using this?”

Presentation

I presented this project internally to many different C-level staff in addition to the chairman of the board. I wanted to get the company on board not just with the project, but also with the process. This was the first time a team had conducted a user-centered design process. I had to prove to the highest levels of management that the outcomes from UCD were worth the time spent researching and validating.

I continued to present the app and evangelize UCD across the company, garnering interest from other teams who wanted to know our trick for success. I presented the application to the national sales team, a group of over 300 individuals, and reignited the team’s excitement for product.

The journey culminated in a 7 minute demo during the keynote address in front of 5000 customers on stage at the Mandalay Bay events center in Las Vegas.

Design

I contributed to the final design and led the collaboration process between design, development, management, sales, training, and marketing teams to build NextGen Go.