Title: TruCircle
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Role: Lead UX Researcher/Scrum Master
Deliverables: Persona, User Flows, Mobile and Desktop Wireframes, Responsive Website Hi-Fidelity Designs, Mobile and Desktop Prototypes,
Tools: User Interviews, Heuristic Evaluation, Persona Creation, Usability Testing, Sketch, InVision, Flinto, Market Research
Challenge:
Our client (TruCircle) approached us with an issue on the provider side of their SaaS platform. The large majority of users were signing up for the free account and directory, but never upgrading or further engaging.
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Goal:
To complete a responsive website redesign of our client's mental healthcare digital platform (SaaS), geared towards the needs and actions of providers before patients
Project Timeline
Before our project officially kicked off, as Scrum Master, I sat with my team and established an estimated Project Timeline to keep us on task. This was subject to change depending on pivots, new information, etc.
Phase 1: Research and Synthesis
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Stakeholder Meeting
Once aware of our client and the product, we prepared for our first meeting with TruCircle's CEO, Lennie Carter. Our team of three started with as much personnel and company research as we could find, including TruCircle's older iterations and business plan changes. We also prepared a script, identifying which topics and information we needed the most during our "stakeholder interview". As the Scrum Master (and team member with the most formal interviewing experience given my background), I directed the questions and conversation, while my colleagues took notes and engaged with follow-up inquiries.
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Heuristic Evaluation
After our meeting, we moved onto a Heuristic Evaluation using the Abby Method. We wanted to "test" certain factors of the site, like navigation, language, and accessibility standards.
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Usability Testing of Existing Site
To corroborate our personal findings, we also chose to do usability testing of the existing site on 3 NON-USERS; This part is key. We wanted to get data from users that have never visited the TruCircle site, to gauge what they'd expect and how they'd navigate. Those users provided the following insights.
Report/Results:
3/3 users were unaware they had to scroll down on Provider page (nothing peeking above the fold)
3/3 users wanted to click the “Get Started for Free”/drawn to the language of free
3/3 users were confused by the “Telemedicine” and “Communication” plans, both because of the titles and the exact same price point of $24 each
4 User Interviews
Near the beginning of every correct UX process, you want to conduct user interviews to gain further data and insights. Since our problem-base was focused on TruCircle account holders, we justified interviewing users provided by the client (which would normally be considered biased users). Our problem was not focused on new users or non-users, yet EXISTING users. This required us to build another script for user interviews, speaking with 4 TruCircle account holders that are all certified mental healthcare providers.
Affinity Mapping
Taking direct quotes, data sets, and behaviors from these user interviews, we had enough information to start affinity mapping. This gave us several user insights, including...
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Persona
Hence how "Janet" was determined. Establishing a persona to represent the user archetype allows us as UX Designers to connect with and directly address the "Goals, Behaviors, Needs, and Pain Points" of TruCircle users. Design decisions are directly built from the needs and pain points of users, showing us WHAT needs to be addressed and WHY.
Problem Statement
I hope that every UX Designers knows this, but correctly defining your Problem Statement is ESSENTIAL for moving forward in a project. Our research phases proved our initial hypothesis to be correct, though it also allowed for some refinement. Our key problem we aimed to improve was as follows:
"When mental health care providers look to grow their practice on the TruCircle platform, they find it difficult to differentiate and get the most out of the upgrade plans.
Janet is content with signing up for the free directory plan but is unaware/does not understand the value in upgrading and/or switching fully to TruCircle.
How might we help existing TruCircle providers discover the advantages of the platform’s services in order to enrich their practice with patients?"
Phase 2: Feature Prioritization
Competitive and Comparative Matrix
When evaluating a mental healthcare digital platform like TruCircle, market research with competitors and comparators is important in a saturated market. There are countless competing services, specializing in everything from video chat (like Doxy.me) to an expanded provider directory (Psychology Today). This helped us visualize where TruCircle sat on the current market, and how we fit in. Comparing features currently offered (and not offered) was eye-opening. So, we moved onto an unofficial "MoSCoW Map".
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MoSCoW Map
The reason I say it was unofficial, is we focused on the "M" and "S" in the term. We wanted to highlight the "Must Have" and "Should Have" features, considering we were on a strict two-week deadline, and could evaluate the "Could Have" and "Won't Have" at a later date.
User Flows
Now that we had our Persona Janet established, our team worked through feature prioritization and necessities. We agreed on creating two separate User Flows to fully understand the current user's website experience.
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One was focused on Providers going through the "Learn More" Phase, while the other focused on the Provider's process through "Try It (features) for Free"
Phase 3: Iterate and Design
Design Studio
This prompted us to move into two Design Studios, hashing out design concepts and lo-fi wireframes in an inexpensive and time-efficient manner. Here are examples of our team sketches.
Mid-fi Wireframes and Prototypes
The beauty of lo-fi wireframes and design studios is the speed to mid-fi. Once we agreed on decision decisions from hand sketches, we moved onto translating them into Sketch (for mid-fi), then developed a prototype to hit usability testing quickly. Lo-fi, Mid-fi, and Prototypes don't always have to be beautiful, since it's an iterative process and usability testing is the most important for decision-making.
Phase 4: Usability Testing, Insights, and More Iterations
Mid-Fi Prototype Usability Testing
Speaking of Usability Testing, we had to conduct very specific tests. Since our project was focused on redesigning a responsive website, we actually had to design wireframes and prototypes for multiple breakpoints (we chose desktop and mobile at this juncture). We created separate desktop and mobile prototypes using InVision, and testing them separately as well.
We conducted 8 Non-User usability test (4 mobile and 4 desktop). These were 8 unique users (to avoid biases) and non-users yet again to test navigation, content language, and other easily understood elements.
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Below is a representative Usability Testing Report from our full results!
Phase 5: Hi-Fidelity Designs and Prototype
After positive feedback from the mid-fi prototype testing, we translated these screen into Hi-Fi Designs (for both desktop and mobile) in Sketch.
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InVision Prototypes
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Desktop: https://projects.invisionapp.com/share/X3SEXGBC8E5#/screens
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Mobile: https://projects.invisionapp.com/share/MDR8CBZBSYJ
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Phase 6: Next Steps and Client Implementation
Next Steps
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Usability Testing of hi-fi prototype
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Potential design studio for a provider dashboard redesign
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Tackle patient-side issues since providers are not getting referrals through TruCircle
POST-Project Implementations
Less than two weeks after our presentation, Lennie Carter and his team implemented SEVERAL of our designs and suggestions to the TruCircle platform, validating our useful insights and user research. We are still in communication with Lennie as well, possibly working on future iterations and parallel issues with the TruCircle platform.
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