Easy-as-pie online appraisal for healthcare professionals.
Setting the scene
AppraiseMe (now called Dr.Focused - http://www.drfocused.com/) asked me to come up with a refreshed UX for their online appraisals product for medical doctors.
Their main aim was to develop an online platform that enabled medical doctors to complete their annual appraisals (a process that was currently completed offline by most doctors) 10x faster than the current alternatives.
The status quo
The current solutions on the market were very rudimentary in form, as well as function. They were essentially, very basic online forms, which is fine for most situations but medical appraisals are over 100 questions long! Research told us that doctors got highly frustrated during the filling out of the appraisal forms, which meant that it required more than one sitting in most cases for an appraisal to be completed.
The process
The usual process of designing would include an extensive analysis of the customer and all of their behaviours but as this analysis had already been carried out by the founders of AppraiseMe, my job was to transform the insight gathered into a great experience.
Throughout the project, I made sure to have some relevant questions to guide me in the design process. The main questions that I asked were:
1. What problem is this solving?
2. How important is this problem in relation to the other problems I have to solve?
3. How can we lower cognitive load?
The results
The first issue that I wanted to alleviate was the fatigue that users were experiencing whilst completing the appraisal. They were constantly feeling like it was an uphill task that seemingly did not have an ending in sight.
My solution to this issue was to break up the appraisal form into better digestible chunks. I further wanted to make these 'chunks' visually less intimidating and instead of presenting the 15 questions of each section up front, they were encased in a highly descriptive "card".
I then added a progress bar that moved every time they answered a question. This positive reinforcement was encouraging to the user and promoted the feeling of progress.
The further use of bright and progressive green against a light grey and white background allowed for a positive and straightforward experience.