Understanding the problem
Conducting generative interviews via UserTesting.com was essential in understanding the needs of the users and the variety of experiences that women had, from pregnancy through postpartumI sought to determine:
- What are the key challenges of the postpartum experience?
- What kinds of technologies are mothers using?
- How can we more effectively help new mothers find answers to their questions?
- How can we provide support for the mental health challenges that mothers are facing?
Research criteria
Distilling the findings
Research pointed to 4 key postpartum task areas.
- Tracking and Data
- Use sleep tracker patterns to inform schedule
- Check O2 & Sleep baby monitors for peace of mind
- Check smartwatches for personal health
- Put notes in phone to track healthcare issues
- Access portal to track vaccinations and appointment adherence
- Newborn Healthcare
- Visit pediatrician routinely
- Manage insurance coverage and claims
- Message, call, or visit pediatrician with questions
- Monitor their health and irregularities at home
- Find specialists as needed
- Information Seeking
- Read internet articles or mom-focused forums
- Reach out to moms in personal network
- Email or message OBGYN with non-urgent questions
- Reference weekly newsletters from doctors or hospitals
- Consult apps for information specific to newborn’s age
- Managing Mental Health
- Complete self-assessments throughout
- Check with doctors to see if it’s more serious
- Participate in counseling
- Contact doctor if antidepressants are needed
Implications: Postpartum mothers can be better supported with attentive providers and accurate information.
- Reliable resources that cover a broad range of postpartum topics are necessary, but there should be customization for users so they feel a level of personal support from their healthcare providers.
- Mothers seek advice from other moms online - community building or peer support of mothers in the same healthcare could help navigate users healthcare challenges.
- Further messaging to normalize Postpartum Depression, accompanied by resources to provide clarity or insight into the experience, would help take the burden off mothers who feel alone or unsupported during this time.
- Different strategies are preferred by different people - there should not be a one-solution-fits-all approach, and users should be able to select which resources they would like to utilize.
Determining where to make an impact
IA diagrams helped determine how the feature needs and the existing portal should work together. I needed to determine how my new solutions (in pink) would integrate with the existing features of the patient portal (outlined in blue). After revising the information architecture a number of times, I decided that many of the new features should live within a high-level "resources" function that could easily be adapted by to the varying needs of different practices.
Through my sketching and wireframing process, I explored different check-in modalities, ways to present informational overviews and action items on home pages, and organization, content, and information architecture of resources within the portal.
Ideating on where changes can be made to the existing architecture to fit these enhancements
Focusing on key feature areas
Focusing on three specific areas afforded time for iterations and seamless integration. These areas included:
- Personalized Home Pages - adding a family mode and resources tailored to ongoing postpartum care
- Expanded Resources - building out a library of articles and a trusted community
- Sensitive Check-ins - helping mothers keep in touch with their mental health and making it easier to reach out
Personalized home pages
Expanded resources
Sensitive check-ins
Making other recommendations for the future
- Expand upcoming care to include other time- sensitive tasks, such as medication refills and immunizations
- Address massive insurance challenges for families with a newborn
- Consider how to help patients easily find therapists/psychologists/psychiatrists to help manage their postpartum depression while inside the portal
- Add to newborn profile: customize with integration of trackers (sleep and O2 were popular in interviews)
Considering next steps
- User testing to test resonance or expectations for these designs
- Ensure designs adapt to desktop functionality
- Consider how tech such as voice assistants could help users quickly access information in articles or complete postpartum check-ins
- Consider how added functionalities can be expanded to other conditions (diabetes, injuries, etc.)
