Woundification
01 Overview
Mobile wound identification apps use a device's camera to analyze and categorize wounds based on type, size, location, and severity. They employ advanced technologies like AI and machine learning to provide accurate assessments and track healing progress. The goal is to improve patient outcomes through precise assessment and effective wound care management.
UX Research Lead
As a feature conceptualized, in the first stage, my responsibility was to ideate design features based on my research and evaluate the feasibility of all touchpoints.
As the lead UX designer, in the first stage, my role was to dig out the pain points of current target users and combine them with the goals of stakeholders. These need comprehensive research and several rounds of user interviews, collaborating with medical practitioners, developers, and stakeholders.
As a UI designer, I was responsible for establishing a comprehensive information architecture and utilizing it to develop wireframes and mockups for user testing. I relentlessly iterated until I achieved the ultimate design.
My Contributions:
Research Stage
Conducted primary and secondary research to understand the user pain points deeply
Did a competitor analysis to find design opportunities and craft product strategies
Interviewed various user groups to better define product directions and designs
Design Stage
Created comprehensive wireframes and prototypes of interactive UIs with Figma
Edited videos to be presented to stakeholders using Adobe Premiere Pro
Role
UX Researcher UX
UI Designer
Methodology
Agile
Information Architecture
Design thinking
User Test
Client
Providence Health
Tools
Miro
Figma
photoshop
Adobe AE
Timeline
3 months
02 Problem Statement
How might we create a wound care app for non-medical professionals to treat their wounds effectively and promptly?
Medical Concept Comprehension
To holistically comprehend the concept of wound care, we started by probing into a range of fundamental wound knowledge, which includes the definition of the wound, wound care wound healing process, wound types, and the general wound assessment process. Additionally, we also looked into minor wounds that seemingly are easier addressed on an application.
Goals
The goal of the project is to research and develop a mobile application that achieve :
Stakeholder’s Goal
Develop a holistic understanding of the app so the concept can be solidified and pitched to other parties, such as investors and industry partners.
Target users’ Goal
An app is designed to provide customized opinions in a user-friendly and understandable manner.
03 Discovery
Based on our initial research, we have identified eight distinct types of open wounds that our application can detect.
These include:
puncture wounds
burns caused by heat
chemicals
electricity
bites and stings
abrasions
cuts
bruises
blisters
ulcers
Each type of wound requires unique methods for identification and evaluation. However, due to the constraints of this project, we will not be examining all types of wounds and their identification processes. Instead, we will be focusing on a more simplified and specific scope.
1. Competitor Research
The goal of competitor analysis is to Identify market opportunities and threats. By analyzing our competitors, we can identify gaps in the market that our app can fill, as well as potential threats to our business from existing or new competitors. According to this research, we will complete the following tasks:
Identify market opportunities and threats
Find the areas that we can offer and make improvement
Set realistic goals and benchmarks for our product
Swift Skin and Wounds
Strengths:
User-Friendly Interface
Comprehensive Wound Management
Real-Time Data Syncing
Customization and Integration
The Telewound Care Canada Project
Strengths:
Convenience
Accessibility
Time and cost savings
Real-time communication
Weakness:
Technical Issues
Limited Platform Compatibility
Weakness:
Technological barriers
Lack of physical examination
Opportunities:
Market Growth
Integration with Wearable Devices
Opportunities:
Expansion of telehealth services
Partnerships with healthcare providers
Threats:
Competitive Landscape
Data Security and Privacy Concerns
Regulatory and Compliance Changes
Threats:
Regulatory and legal considerations
Competition
Ping An Health
Strengths:
Brand Reputation
Comprehensive services
User-friendly interface
Integration with other Ping An platforms
Weakness:
Language limitations
Technical issues
Lack of personalization
Opportunities:
Market growth
Partnerships and collaborations
Threats:
Data security and privacy concerns
Competition
My role: I was in charge of the whole competitor research and found that the current wound care apps or websites mainly focus on the knowledge base instead of providing customized information for patients, which is not user-friendly for people who have little medical background or low educational level.
2. User Research
During the product ideation phase, we conducted several interviews to get first-hand user data for analysis and to provide suggestions for prototype iteration in the context of a laceration wound assessment.
Interview - Version 1 (New Wound)
User Research Objectives
Before designing the user research, we listed out the questions that need to be clarified.
Do my users have impairments or disabilities to consider–whether temporary, situational, or permanent?
How familiar are my users with technology?
How are my users accessing the product or service?
Where and when are my users accessing the product or service?
Have I considered all my potential users?
To better understand the needs of users, we conducted a survey to figure out how people treat.
Demographic Information
Number of participants: 45
Gender: female (n=30 ); male (n=15)
Educational level: above high school
Age: 20-25 years old (n=25) ; above 25 years old (n=20)
Questions
What wounds are you most likely to have?
How it is usually treated?
How often do you pay attention to the changes in the wound？
Will you search online or download software?
Have you ever had severe trauma?
How did you treat it?
What are the general questions for wounds?
Do you carry coins with you?
How often do you bring a phone charger with you when you go out?
What is your phone model?
Conclusions
Measurement tool
Few people bring coins and chargers with them all the time
Suggested Features(user’s need for this app):
Compare to new wounds, they more care about the healing condition of old wounds or continuous follow-up
Medication instructions
Anticipated time or timeline
Prevent the wound
Get rid of the scar
Skin allergy (treatment)
How to go to the nearby available hospital that covered medical insurance fee
Some of them don’t want to take pictures, they prefer to select similar pictures and make comparisons by themselves
Most of them don’t need wound identification functions, because they know how causes of wounds
Want to know what kind of other symptoms will be infected
How to treat my wounds if I use the wrong way to treat them at the beginning
Want to know more about invisible diagnosis
Diabetics:
Have great demand for reminder functions—— their nerves are insensitive so that they will get hurt unconsciously
Want to know more about invisible diagnosis
Based on wounds, the app can provide more information about their condition
Long-term tracking function
Provide diabetics with educational resources on wound care, including information on how to prevent and manage wounds
My role:
Based on my statistics research on diabetes, I realized that BC province has one of the most numbers of diabetics, and the expense for diabetes is increasing annually. So that I led the interview of diabetics, then I realized that diabetics suffer from wound problems intensively and have more complex conditions due to the damage of nerves. Based on this information, I came up with the tracking and reminder functions in the design stage.
Following the interview, I noticed that few individuals require guidance on wound care treatment for their new wounds. The majority of people only need it when their old wounds fail to cure on time. This discovery altered our initial design concept.
3. Design Pitch
Pitched Concept
My role: The original pitch was to create an app where individuals can take a photo of the wound and compare it to a database of similar wounds, then categorize it by metrics and suggests ways to improve it.
The application was aimed to help people assess the severity of a wound to decide whether they need to seek medical attention; provide reliable and correct information about the wound; suggest treatment options; keep track of the progress of wound treatment; bring knowledge about wound care; to empower people to learn about their wounds and seek the proper treatment; a way to identify wounds.
Pitched Features of Woundification
The pitched features of the application are listed below:
Disclaimer message on home page
The user takes a picture of the wound
Fill out a questionnaire, to identify underlying conditions
Pictures of similar wounds are shown for the user to choose one
A message pops up: “Please consult a doctor” with links to where a doctor could be found and an emergency number
Healing options are provided with different price levels, etc., as suggestions
A log will be provided for the user to document the healing process
A daily messaging system for reminding the user to take care of the wound
A map that shows the location of medical facilities, or the location of the medication that they should purchase.
Interview - Version 2 (Old Wound)
My role:
Before I started the second interview, I completed sufficient research on the difference between people treating old wounds compare to new wounds. Because nearly everyone has basic knowledge of treating new wounds, guidance on new wound treatment is unnecessary.
I iterated our questionnaire to properly excavate their essential requirements.
After collecting feedback from interviews, one significant issue identified is that users experienced frustration when trying to locate guidance on particular conditions. ( weather, lifestyle, scar, previous wrong treatment), therefore I worked with my teammates on the questionnaire which is the first part of our app trying to distinguish users’ conditions with the least questions.
Demographic Information
Number of participants: 45
Gender: Female (n=30); male (n=15)
Educational level: Above the high school
Age: Age: 20-25 years old (n=25); above 25 years old (n=20)
Assumptions
Users who have failed to treat the wounds by themselves, want to know why is their wound(s) not cured or getting better.
Users who have failed to treat the wounds by themselves, and want to know how to cure them.
Users who have scars and want to get rid of them.
Users who have chronic wound(s) try to avoid infection and inflammation-diabetics, and users of old age.
Objects
We aim to find out what common problems users have when they treat the wound(s) by themselves and what demands they need after treating wound(s) inappropriately.
Questions
How long does it take for a wound to heal?
When do you think you need to search the information about the wound or go to the hospital
If your wound doesn't heal on time, what would you do?
What support do you want to receive during your healing time?
What kind of questions do you always ask about your old wound (scar? inflammation?)
Where do you get the information on wound treatment?
How many problems do you think the suggestion part addressed?
Conclusions
Function:
It’s better to have the function of guidance of medication.
Details of why the system recommends this medicine to me.
I want to have a diverse combination of medications that I can choose.
I can’t find a big difference compared to Google research.
I want to have an online service, or simulated human service so as to enhance credibility. like you can list out the keywords I need to mention in the beginning, then I can type the content by myself. and the keywords will be extracted and analyzed by an AI system. So that many unnecessary steps can be omitted.
Typing long sentences is inconvenient, the voice input function is needed.
Experience
Poor experience. merely the standardized questions fail to convince me that the app truly takes all of my conditions into consideration. Diagnosis is not a standardized thing, the whole process overlooks too many personal conditions.
The result that the system gives is too general.
The way of information collection lack of credibility.
Your design should consider the psychological condition of patients.
Process
Lacking freedom. I have to follow the whole process and then get a result.
Several functions lack logic and connection.
Design Stage
Persona
2. Brain Storm
After collecting feedback from interviews, one significant issue identified is that users experienced frustration when trying to locate guidance on particular conditions. ( weather, lifestyle, scar, previous wrong treatment), therefore I worked with my teammates on the questionnaire which is the first part of our app trying to distinguish users’ conditions with the least questions.
3. Insights
Identification: Provide wound identification function that helps patients know the type of wounds and their severity
Self-treatment suggestion: Provide tailored non-medical wound care suggestions that help the user handle old minor wounds appropriately and improve the user’s daily activities.
Medical reminder: Suggest nearby locations of clinics and hospitals especially if the wound becomes terrible or in other unpredictable conditions.
Wound tracking reminder: Assist in tracking user’s wound progress and remind them to address the old wound on a daily basis.
4. User Flow
My role:
I contributed the idea of a Medical reminder and Wound tracking function which came from my interview with a diabetic, comprehending that most diabetics are old people, and having a poor memory of taking medication on time can significantly impact the healing of wounds.
For the sake of providing accurate recommendations, I classified the multiple factors that might be related to wound healing:
Different Locations, Types of Laceration, Level of Laceration, Different stages of laceration treatment, General suggestions, ClothTextures, Activities, Weather, Prevention of Scarring, Chronic Disease
We are designing a wound identification system that collects wound information from users and provides non-diagnostic treatment suggestions accordingly. Part of the wound information will be collected by the phone camera, and rest of the wound information will be collected through a questionnaire.
5.Building Design Features
The pitched features of the application are explored and determined if it is crucial to the application or not during the design process. Additional features are added through research, user interviews, and user testing.
Additional design features are listed below:
Changing the text size to cater to users with advanced age
Switching profiles for users that are caregivers or have family members
