Overview
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Aura is a mobile platform designed to lighten the workload of professional caregivers, and by extension, help improve their mental health
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Project Description
The goal of our proposed platform, Aura, is to lighten the workload of professional caregivers and nurses, and by extension, its impact on their mental health. By integrating a variety of new and important features, the app will allow CNAs to organize their tasks, interact conveniently and gain quick access to relevant data on the job while also being able to watch their own mental health!
Project Details
Class Project: Introduction to User-Centered Design - HCDE 318 (March 2019 - June 2019)
Type: Mobile UX Design
Tools: Affinity Diagrams, Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Semi-Structured Interviews, InVision
Role: While the entire team worked on all parts of the project, I was heavily involved in the User Selection, Interviews, Journey Map, Paper Prototyping, Experience Evaluations, and Low and High Fidelity Mock ups.
Aura was a 10 week project for HCDE 318, an upper-level undergraduate course at the University of Washington.
Want to learn more? Scroll down to learn more about the mobile application as well as the process we took to create our final portfolio!
Type: Mobile UX Design
Tools: Affinity Diagrams, Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Semi-Structured Interviews, InVision
Role: While the entire team worked on all parts of the project, I was heavily involved in the User Selection, Interviews, Journey Map, Paper Prototyping, Experience Evaluations, and Low and High Fidelity Mock ups.
Aura was a 10 week project for HCDE 318, an upper-level undergraduate course at the University of Washington.
Want to learn more? Scroll down to learn more about the mobile application as well as the process we took to create our final portfolio!
Design Process
User Group SelectionThe first task in this project was to come up with a user
group. To do so, we spent 5 minutes individually coming up with potential user groups and then put all our ideas into a coordinate grid. We wanted to design for a new group of people, avoiding creating a product for user groups that we had extensive past experiences (and therefore biases) with. After some discussion, the team decided to focus our project on Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs). |
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User InterviewsTo best design for our users, it was important to understand their needs and pain points. After brainstorming questions, we each conducted interviews and came back as a group to analyze the insights gained. We placed these insights on sticky notes and grouped them together, coming up with various categories. These categories let us pin point major pain areas in which a CNA's workplace can be improved.
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Key Insights
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User Personas & Journey Map
We used our insights and research to create two personas. After receiving feedback on our provisional personas, we created two refined personas. These personas were created to accurately depict potential users to help guide us through our design process as a reference point we could come back to. We expanded on our research to make a user journey map to identify the tasks and pain points in a users day. The journey map is a reference point as we create solutions to those common pain points and tasks throughout the day.
Check out our Personas and Journey Map below!
Check out our Personas and Journey Map below!
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StoryboardsTo further our understanding, we create different storyboards conveying the issues and experiences of our users. Each storyboard has solutions we ideated related to a pain point we found during research based on our design requirements. Our mix of drawing and pictures conveyed different messages and emotions in an intuitive way. These narratives helped us visualize the contexts our users operate in and function within from their perspective.
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Paper Prototyping & User EvaluationsAfter 7 weeks, we got to making the first iteration of our solution! We made a paper prototype as it was the best way to test new ideas in a way we could make easy modifications without becoming attached to our design. We emphasized the basic functions and flow of the application. We had users test our product by having them navigate the app in the different situations while using Think Aloud Protocol. Based on their feedback and observations, we will be adding and changing a few features in the low-fidelity wireframing stage.
Changes Included: Adding CNA Community page, reorganizing Communication pages, and making buttons more distinguishable
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Notes from a User Evaluation
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Low Fidelity WireframesAfter all of our hard work, we finally saw digitized screens of our solution! Taking into account the user feedback we got from evaluations, our changes helped make our design more user friendly and better fit the needs of the CNA's. In our low-fidelity wireframes, we digitized our mobile screens while focusing more on the content and layout of the application to make sure our design is intuitive and user-friendly while not focusing as much on color, pictures, and other fine details.
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High Fidelity Mock Ups
After getting feedback on our low fidelity wireframes, we created high fidelity mock ups that included color and other fine details to make our screen more visually appealing. These high fidelity mock ups made our design more realistic and we were able to see what our final application would look like. We focused on functionality of the platform at the users' workplace. By designing detailed screens, we intended to create a prototype that allowed our users to interact with what they would be seeing in the field and provide feedback that can help us continue to iterate and finalize our design.
Aura Home
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Aura Patient Profile
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Aura Shift Scheduler
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Aura Communities
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Aura CNA Community Board
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Aura Tasks
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Meet Aura
Main Features
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Community Boards
Community Boards allow CNA's to talk to a variety of people quickly and efficiently. CNA's are able to message co-workers, their boss, as well as community boards (such as Reddit) for a place to talk with and get to know others in the CNA and Caregiving Community. By proving central communication, getting help and advice is quick and easy |
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Patient Profile
The Patient Profile pages help CNA's organize their work by allowing them to view all the patient information they need right at their fingertips. In these pages, a CNA can view any comments left by other CNA's, the tasks that need to be completed, and any medication that needs to be given, allowing for a more organized routine. |
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Scheduler
The Schedule page of Aura allows a CNA to quickly view and make edits to their schedule. CNA's can see when they have work and an overview of what their day will look like while also being able to request days off and clock in and out from this page, creating a centralized process right in the palm of their hands. |
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Final Portfolio DeliverableAt the end of our 10 week project, our final deliverable was a portfolio website. We created this to highlight our steps and reflection throughout the project!
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Interactive PrototypeTest the Interactive Prototype on
the right to navigate through parts of Aura! *Not a full prototype |
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Reflection
When I set out to help CNAs in this class project, I did not understand what they went through at work. During my interview, I was surprised at the insights. These interviews inspired my group to make sure our app could had as much of a positive impact on their work life as possible. We wanted to reduce their stress by increasing organization and help them after work by having a place to talk to other people going through similar situations. We are happy with what we completed during the class. However, given the scope of this class, we were not able to talk about and add everything we wanted to. Currently, it's focused on the work and organization aspect. If given the chance, we would go back and further develop the community boards as well as a personal health tracker to make sure that the CNAs feel like they are being heard. By developing that further, we can truly be an application that can help reduce mental stress and provide ways for CNAs to feel supported and appreciated.