The Team

Our team was composed by Angela Buron, Gaetan Cotton and myself. As the facilitator of the group was responsible for making sure that our team was able to produce a solution which met both the user and business goals. The end of the project saw use pitch our UX solution which was well received by SuperCarers. We also produced a specification document to handover to their development team.

The Brief

SuperCarers were experiencing low conversion from customers asking for an initial care plan to finally using the service. They wanted us to develop a solution that would improve conversion from their initial leads.

Discovery Phase

Stakeholder interviews

Through a series of stakeholder interviews and analyzing the existing on-boarding process we were able to understand Supercarers business objectives and define the the opportunity, solution and outcome statements.

Opportunity

Users experience a gap of time between on-boarding and receiving their care team, that leaves them confused.

Solution

A web app that makes use of the downtime and keeps the user engaged.

Outcome

The care seeker feels informed, engaged and supported through the whole process.

Competitive analysis

To understand the market, we compared the principal competitors according to the needs and worries of users, the emotional support provided by the company and the financial impact.

User research

We sent out an initial screener survey on various care forums and website chatroom's to find potential users to interview. Once we had acquired a sufficient pool of users from our survey we conducted user interviews primarily over the phone. We asked a set amount of questions of in each interview on specific areas of behavior and their experience with the care system.

I was scared about meeting the carer directly at my place, I didn't know what to say and it was a bit awkward”
Caroline, London

Choosing the right candidate is a very scary decision

Liz, Essex

I then conducted an affinity mapping exercise with Gaetan to discover patterns in user behavior and and organise them into groupings based on their natural relationships.

Through the interviews and affinity mapping the main pain points we identified were the following:

• Users are going through a very emotionally hard process and they have trouble to make difficult decisions.

• Users are worried about the qualifications and the experience of the carers.

• Users feel anxious because they don’t know what to expect.

Defining the Problem

Persona Creation

Using the data provided by Supercarers and our user research we summarised the vast majority of the actual users are middle age woman, not tech savvy, working full time and looking for a carer for an elderly relative suffering from dementia. Based on these finding we created two personas.

USER STORIES

Using our primary persona Martha we developed several user stories imagining Martha’s journey, we created an scenario and studied the existing journey she follows to get home care for her mother. This helped us understand the parts of the experience that don't involve the system.

EXPERIENCE MAPPING

Based on the user stories and research we were able to create some experience mapping based on each point of the journey. We soon identified that the main area of stress was the waiting time experienced when waiting for a care package.

USER FLOW

Using Martha I created several user flows showing how Martha would move through the system for some predetermined goals. This helped us focus on what features and interactions to add to our we should add to our design solution.

Developing the Solution

Design studio

For the design studio we set two challenges for our persona Martha to complete. The first was how would Martha see the progress in the creation of her care plan and the second was how we could help Martha feel confident using the web app. Each person was tasked with visualizing how their to solve the challenge. Once we had completed the visuals each person had time to discuss their option. The design studio was really helpful, as it gave us insight from SuperCarers of how they would visualize possible solutions.

The first paper prototype was based on the idea of creating a timeline to show the step of the process where the user is at one specific moment, as well as give a general view and understanding of the whole process. All the new content would be included in the existing web app, so the users would feel comfortable with it before using it to manage their needs.

User Testing

We conducted in person user testing on all the fidelity versions of our prototypes. Through our user testing we discovered that our users were very response to positive tone of voice and imagery. We also found large text and clear simple design helped the users navigate our timeline easier. We also discovered that a personalised care advisor really improved the user experience when going through the on-boarding process.

Delivering the Solution

Clickable prototype

The below prototype takes you from the initial personalised email through to setting up your account and then moving onto the timeline which explains the care process and the what happen next.

"I would like to say that I was extremely impressed with the skill level demonstrated by the GA team... Our interactions were invariably as informative as they were enjoyable and it was extremely valuable to expose other members of our company to how this phase of product development should be carried out properly."

David Elstob, Lead Developer, SuperCarers