Connect
Care

A mobile application to allow physiotherapists to administer remote care during the COVID-19 lockdowns in Toronto. The application allows physiotherapists to chart patient data, provide the patient with exercises, and communicate with the patient in real-time.

Overview

Our team members were approached with this project with the purpose of bringing together students from different programs to collaborate and create as if we were working as hired professionals from our fields. We were tasked with ideating, researching, designing, and developing a solution to a problem that incorporated the use of a Bebop sensor. These sensors allow the recording and use of human touch interactions to be utilized in many ways, thus allowing our team the ability to think way beyond technologies we are familiar with in a classroom setting. After some initial ideating, we collectively agreed to direct our focus to the medical field because of its prominence and importance in our lives, and because of the repercussions it has faced recently due to the pandemic.

Project Scope

Our team consisted of a Project Manager, two User Experience Designers, an Industrial Designer, and a Software Developer. We collaborated remotely from January through April to complete this project. Our team used Miro, Adobe XD, Adobe Illustrator, and CAD to brainstorm, design, and model Connect Care.

Problem Statement

“How might we use the technologies of the Bebop Sensors to help medical professionals assess and treat their patients?”

Discovery Phase

Primary Audience

Occupation: Local Physiotherapists

Age: 18-70

Location: The Greater Toronto Area

Other Traits:

Are interested in emerging technology,
Have an interest in optimizing their workflow,
Work in multiple different environments such as a hospital and a private clinic.

Research

The purpose of our research was to understand the market for similar products and to see if there was a need for touch technologies in physiotherapy. We also wanted to gather direct feedback from medical professionals to understand their thoughts, values, and what their experience is like when working with patients. Our UX team reached out to and interviewed local physiotherapists, nurses, and occupational therapists. This helped us to identify pain points and their point of view on the products and methods they are currently using to allow us to uncover opportunities in the field.

On account of our timeline, we were unable to conduct further research but kept in contact with one of our interviewees to continue getting feedback throughout the design process.

Ideation

Our team wanted to create an application that would connect with the BeBop sensors to provide assistance to a need in the community. After much brainstorming and deliberation, our team decided to develop a physical product that would help physiotherapists administer remote and in-person care. This physical product could be given to a patient to take home with them and used to measure strength/progress as they completed remote physical therapy. The data from the sensor would be sent to the app which the physical therapist could view and send feedback.

Before embarking on this idea, the UX team completed an ideation phase which consisted of brainstorming techniques (with our primary audience in mind) Starbursting, and Brain Writing. These methods allowed us to come up with a scope of possible content and features for our application as well as potential use cases.

Define Phase

Key Findings

Our most insightful findings:

Physiotherapists have difficulty finding the time to chart their patients’ results. With the urgency and unpredictability the pandemic has placed in the medical sector, therapists want to treat as many patients as they can and not waste appointment times writing their notes.
We also discovered that there is no universal method for physiotherapists to measure strength. Depending on the technologies available, budgets, and patient demographics, each therapist uses a different technique or even their own arbitrary judgment. Following these insights, we developed Connect Care.

Task Flows

With our key findings in mind, my fellow UX designer and I came up with three rough task flows that we used to inform our sketches.

Development Phase

Initial Design

My teammate and I collaborated over Miro to complete low-fidelity sketches for the task flows.

Together we then reviewed the other’s designs and collaboratively decided on the elements we liked. We then transferred these sketches into low-fidelity wireframes using Adobe XD.

Wireframes

Using our final sketches, my team mate and I created low fidelity wireframes in Adobe XD to help map out the user experience.

Creative Strategy

Our creative strategy started with a mood board and “action words” that we thought reflected the proposition of the application and sensor attachment. Using our mood board we progressed to developing a style tile that outlines the basic building blocks for our high fidelity mockup. This included design deliverables such as our colour palette, typography choices, and other interface elements like buttons, icons, and form fields.

We wanted the design to convey a modern but playful vibe. The colours we chose were meant to convey the beliefs of ambition, loyalty and trust.

The logo was created to minic the image of a user touching the sensor.

View Mock-Ups

Deliver Phase

CAD Renderings

Our industrial designer created realistic renderings in CAD software to showcase how the physical therapy devices would look. These devices would be used by the client to measure their strength over a variety of motions such as grip strength, balance, and pushing strength.

Reflections

Unfortunately, this project was completed during the COVID lockdown at the beginning of 2022. As a team, we faced a lot of delays and funding issues that resulted in us having less time to complete the project as we would have initially liked. Once the high-fidelity mock-ups were completed we were at the end of our funding and were thus asked to stop work. If we had more time I would have liked to have completed more research at the beginning by interviewing 3-5 more physical therapists over varying sectors.

Additionally, usability testing on the final prototype would have helped us identify any pain points in the app that were not apparent to us as designers.