MediTracker
Medications, all with their own specifications, can be hard to manage.
Overview
MediTracker is a medication reminder and management application. It allows users to visualize their daily doses and keep all of their medication details in one place.
Role
Sole UX/UI Designer
Timeline
8 weeks
Setting
Conceptual case
The Prompt
"Design a way to help young adults remember to take medication on time"
Target Audience
The target audience was expanded to include both adults and young adults, as I needed more user testing participants who had a history of taking medication consistently.
User Research
Interviews
I began by interviewing participants about their experience taking medications.
The aim was to gain a better understanding of users: prescription schedules, struggles to remember medications, pain points, and what types of strategies they used.
Pain Points
Memory
Difficulty remembering to set an alarm, refill a prescription, or take a dose.
Planning
Some medications have very strict timings, and users want to plan ahead so their next pill isn’t due at an inconvenient time.
Decentralized Information
A desire to have all medication information in one place to help manage the overwhelm of multiple requirements.
Most users already have strategies to help them remember their medications, but there was room for improvement.
Personas
Theo
Age: 22
Education: Bachelor's
Family: Single, Roommate
Occupation: Developer
Monique
Age: 54
Education: Masters'
Family: Married
Occupation: Teacher
Theo is a busy graduate entering the workforce, who works long and unpredictable hours. He has been taking medication for many years now but struggles to remember to take it on time. He has tried reminder strategies in the past, but nothing has stuck.
Monique is an established elementary school teacher living in a small city. Due to health complications, she often has to take multiple pills each day with strict requirements. If she misses a dose, she experiences symptoms that distract her from job.
Goals
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To take his medication consistently
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To excel at work
Frustrations
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Forgetting one dose often spirals to multiple missed days
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“My prescription needs to be refilled, and I often forget that as well”
Goals
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To successfully complete her prescription
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To reduce her symptoms
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To have a plan for her medications
Frustrations
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Some pills have strict requirements, such as time of day and after a meal
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“If I take my morning pill late, then I have to stay up late to take my night pill”
User Journeys
Persona: Theo
Goal: To successfully take his reoccurring daily prescription medication.
Mapping Theo’s journey revealed it would be useful to track remaining pills, so a refill reminder can be set.
Monique's journey revealed it would be useful to note when a medication was taken, so the next dose can be properly scheduled. Also to add visual cues for meds taken with food.
Persona: Monique
Goal: To manage her multiple medications which have specific requirements.
The user research made it clear that users would feel less overwhelmed about their health if they had an easy way to plan, manage and track medication usage.
Proposed Solution
To design a way to allow users to plan, manage and track their medication usage. An app would be the best mode, as users carry it around with them throughout the day. This makes users more likely to see reminders and makes their medication information accessible anywhere.
Design
Competitor Analysis
To begin my design process, I researched similar medication management apps currently on the market.
This allowed me to identify their strengths and opportunities for my own app.
Strengths
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Staged questionnaire for adding new medications
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Satisfying animation upon completing a dose
- Clean, uncluttered UI
Opportunities
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View of past & upcoming doses
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Flexible options for dose timings
Ideation
I did a quick ideation exercise to generate ideas for the app.
My focus here was on medication tracking and simple informative features.
Notification bar summarizing upcoming doses at a glance
Grouping medications into time blocks for simplicity
Days of the week carosel to preview upcoming doses
Mark when a dose is taken to avoid accidental misses or double doses
Digital Wireframes
After ideating and drafting paper wireframes, I created initial designs for the app.
This design focused on the medication tracking homepage.
Low Fidelity Prototype
To prepare for usability testing, I created a low-fidelity prototype.
I wanted to test the "New Medication" flow to see how users reacted.
I also showed them my initial concepts for viewing medication schedules and the medication details panel.
Usability Studies
I conducted unmoderated usability studies with participants aged 20 to 60. The main focus was on the "New Medication" flow, but I also asked for feedback on other screens.
I made three major changes based on the studies:
Adding More
Medication Details
Users wanted additional details to be listed with each medication, such as the dose strength, RX # and refill warnings.
Improving Dose Interactions
Users wanted to quickly determine the status of a dose and intuitively take action.
Condensing the "New Medication" Flow
Users complained that the process was too long, and they did not have a sense of where they were in the flow.
More Medication Details
These screens were redesigned to accommodate important medication details, some of which are optional.
The user can also customize the icons to easily differentiate medications in the main view.
The "add a new medication" button was moved to the top so users with many entries didn't need to scroll down to locate it.
Improving Dose Interactions
To make this interface more intuitive, I applied stylings to each medication row to indicate different states (taken, pending, late, skipped).
I also added the current date and time at the top of the screen for easy reference.
Condensing the "New Medication" Flow
To improve this flow, I reduced the number of screens by combining similar questions onto single pages.
I also added a progress bar to allow the user to know how far along they were in the process.
High-Fidelity Prototype
The high-fidelity prototype followed the same user flow as the low-fidelity prototype, including design changes made after the usability study.
Final Designs
Areas for Improvement
Refine the medication frequency options to be more intuitive
Add statistics page for users to have better insight of their medication usage
Design alternate screens that use larger text for users with poor vision