Helping migraine patients track their attacks
For the student mobile design competition at San Francisco State University we built Headspace, an app to help people suffering with migraines track their attacks and determine the causes of it.
ROLE
Product Designer on a team of 2 marketeers and 1 engineer.
TOOLS
Sketch
RESULT
Got recognized with the Best User Experience award.
In this case study, I’ll go over the processes that I followed to build this experience, and explain my reasoning behind the design decisions that I took. I’ll illustrate my process in form of visual diagrams wherever I can, so it is easier for the reader to skim for information.
Background
After reading the prompt, I started jotting down some personal medical needs that I wanted technology to solve. I came up with an idea to track my mood swings so I can take better care of my mental health. Upon a simple online search, I found a plethora of established apps that were already doing this. I wanted something a bit more niche.
My next idea was to track migraines and headaches. I found a handful of apps. I spent a while using them and tried to understand the value they provided to migraine patients. I formed a hypothesis that tracking migraines was important to people suffering from them and decided to research more.
My next idea was to track migraines and headaches. I found a handful of apps. I spent a while using them and tried to understand the value they provided to migraine patients. I formed a hypothesis that tracking migraines was important to people suffering from them and decided to research more.
1. People journal their migraines to recognize triggers and avoid them. Triggers could vary from person to person making it all the more important to find them from your personal experiences. This validated my initial hypothesis that journaling migraines was important for people suffering with it.2. Talk to a person who is affected by migraines and ask about her or his experience
2. Migraine is most common in the 35-45 age group. People in this age group aren’t always comfortable with typing on a keyboard and would rather write in a physical diary than on their phone’s notes app.
2. Migraine is most common in the 35-45 age group. People in this age group aren’t always comfortable with typing on a keyboard and would rather write in a physical diary than on their phone’s notes app.
Help migraine patients decrease the severity of their attacks and lead a better life
Design an experience for migraine patients to help them record their attacks without needing to type.
I had gained a lot of insights by talking to Swati, but I did not want to base my personas on just her. To research more about user needs, I went to The Daily Migraine, a blog where people talk about living with migraines and how it affects their career and social life. Reading those perspectives helped me create two personas.
One of the goals of this app is to encourage the user to share insights aggregated by the app with their doctors. Every medical report needs basic patient information like age, gender, weight, height etc. The goal of the onboarding flow is to collect this information.
Logging in with a gmail account will help the wizard autofill the gender and age section of the questionnaire, ensuring a smoother user flow. If the user doesn’t want to complete the questionnaire they can skip it altogether. The app will ask the user for this information afterwards if they get interested in building the medical rreport.
Logging in with a gmail account will help the wizard autofill the gender and age section of the questionnaire, ensuring a smoother user flow. If the user doesn’t want to complete the questionnaire they can skip it altogether. The app will ask the user for this information afterwards if they get interested in building the medical rreport.
Migraines can be tracked from the Track (home) page of the app. The iOS and Android screens differ slightly in terms of the UI patterns followed by their respective platforms. The Android screen has a floating action button while the iOS has an action button on the top right.
If the user feels that these screens are getting in their way of recording new reports, they can disable these screens by clicking on “Don’t show again”.
Once the user is past the breather screen, they are greeted with QnA style questions. The QnA screen consists of familiar UI elements like checkbox, sliders and options boxes to help the user record their migraines without ever needing to type.
If the user feels that these screens are getting in their way of recording new reports, they can disable these screens by clicking on “Don’t show again”.
Once the user is past the breather screen, they are greeted with QnA style questions. The QnA screen consists of familiar UI elements like checkbox, sliders and options boxes to help the user record their migraines without ever needing to type.
All recorded reports can be found in the Records tab. A calendar view helps the user jump to a specific date easily. The calendar also serves as visual timeline for your attacks with the size of the circle serving as an indicator of severity of your attacks on that day.
When the user click on a particular record, they are moved to the detailed report screen which contains all the information recorded by the user. The user can edit it or add some missing information by clicking on the edit icon.
The user can share a single report or share all reports with their doctor. The latter is preferred as the typical patient has an average of 15 migraines a month and exporting all these reports one at a time will be quite cumbersome for the user. This is the reason why the button to share all reports (in the insights page) is noticeably more prominent than the button to share a single report (in the detailed page report). Both these buttons stick to the bottom of the screen while you scroll the report / insight.
When the user click on a particular record, they are moved to the detailed report screen which contains all the information recorded by the user. The user can edit it or add some missing information by clicking on the edit icon.
The user can share a single report or share all reports with their doctor. The latter is preferred as the typical patient has an average of 15 migraines a month and exporting all these reports one at a time will be quite cumbersome for the user. This is the reason why the button to share all reports (in the insights page) is noticeably more prominent than the button to share a single report (in the detailed page report). Both these buttons stick to the bottom of the screen while you scroll the report / insight.
Ideation
Research - Key Learnings
Mission
Goal
Personas
Task Flow
Sketches
Low Fidelity Wireframes
Mid Fidelity Wireframes
Onboarding
Recording a Migraine
Records and Insights
High Fidelity Designs
Alisha Cheung
Neena Singh
Forgets her diary at home and forgets to note down her migraine.
Notes down her migraine on her phone when diary is not near but finds it very tiresome.
PAIN POINTS
Is not able to pinpoint her triggers from her diet.
Migraines usually happen after a nightout but she isn’t sure if the alcohol or the greasy food is causing it.
PAIN POINTS
Looking for a simple tracking tool that helps to cut down unnecessary time and effort.
Looking to find out if her menstruation cycle coincides with her attacks.
NEEDS
Looking for a way to note down possible triggers when a migraine happens.
Looking to find out if her menstruation cycle coincides with her attacks
NEEDS
31 year old financial analyst.
Carries medicines everywhere she goes since an attack can strike her anywhere.
Maintains a physical diary to note down her attacks.
42 year old freelance illustrator.
Doesn’t know about her triggers. Doctor has recommended her to start noting down her attacks.
Looking to start maintaining a migraine diary.
1/4
SKIP
Recod an attack
PAST MIGRAINES
CALENDAR
Record Migraine: Step 1
Allury Migraine
Sunday, Dec 23, 2018
5:30 PM - 9:00 PM
2/4
Reports
Detailed Report
Record Migraine: Step 2
Send to Doctor
Sign Up
Breather Screen
Quick Questions
Page 1
Page 1
Quick Questions
Page 2
Page 2
Insights
Track
Track - Android
Track - iOS
New Migraine Report
Welcome
Breather Screen
Questionnaire