Client:
Case Study
Role:
Project Manager, Lead Researcher
Project Duration:
1 1/2 Weeks
Tools:
Slack, Trello, Sketch, InVision, Miro, Mural, Google Forms, Spreadsheet
Project Summary
Create the user experience surrounding a new VR therapy feature for the new Oscar Healthcare App. What would a successful experience look like from the first login? How might the user be onboarded to this new digital experience using a Google Cardboard and their smartphone? Building context around the purpose of the new feature.
Team Members:
Blair Reeves, Qinglu Lu
Getting Up to Speed
Project Brief
Oscar, a leading technology-savvy healthcare company, wants to expand on its services and make an innovative treatment even more accessible to its users. The Oscar VR feature will treat anxiety, depression, phobias, and other forms of psychological trauma and chronic fear-based ailments using a mobile phone and Google Cardboard in their own homes.
Brand Overview
We dove into the world of Oscar Healthcare. Who is Oscar Healthcare?
Founded in 2012, Oscar Health Insurance is a technology-focused health insurance company headquartered in New York City.
The company focuses on the health insurance industry through telemedicine, healthcare-focused technological interfaces, and transparent claims pricing systems.
Oscar's aim is to change Americans’ experience of engaging with the healthcare system by redesigning insurance to be geared toward the user experience.
Oscar’s Mobile Platform
Oscar is about connecting patients to immediate levels of care and helping users manage their relationship with their provider at an affordable cost. Take a look at the clear, yet basic approach to mobile health.
Leaving the space circulating Oscar Healthcare, it was time to educate ourselves on the use of virtual reality in telemedicine to grasp why someone might need this feature at all.
Iterations of VR Therapy
Spending time in virtual reality can have broader therapeutic benefits, especially for people combating phobias, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
VR Audience Feedback
There are monitored VR therapy sessions in controlled environments such as doctor’s offices or technology labs. The patient watches and interacts with selected content, then the technicians or doctors facilitate the experience while taking in information.
Headsets like Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR have made virtual reality anywhere possible by using your smartphone. In our therapy context, consumers use VR in their own environment to help quit bad habits, help kids with pain management from diseases like sickle cell and offer meditation content to help individuals suffering from stress and anxiety.
“Research is showing that VR can be a powerful tool for impacting people’s perceptions and actions in the real world.”
Market Research
What would it look like for someone in their own home, using this feature?
Important Questions
What were the technology requirements for these tools?
What was the context and purpose of these experiences?
What prior education or assistance was needed to use the VR?
Unpacking User Needs
User interviews
Research is one of my favorite parts of the UX process. Getting to talk with real people, face to face (through Zoom). Our team was looking to talk with subject matter experts when it came to therapy but also had experience using VR. We an informative survey to find participants.
Interview Goal:
Decipher if our project will have two personas. After we come to that conclusion, we want to find our personas pain points with therapy, best practices for a successful/unsuccessful session, and how someone that uses therapy feels about virtual reality.
We heard comments like:
“It is hard to find a match with the right therapist.”
“I don’t have a lot of extra money for therapy. It isn’t included in my insurance.”
“When I think of VR, I think of the fake or synthetic experience.”
Through these interviews, we discovered users suffered from uncontrollable moods, anxiety, and depression. The process of seeking a therapist, session costs, and having to now talk over video calls were huge pain points for users. When asked about virtual reality, all of the users had issues when using the technology and had mixed concerns using VR for therapy purposes.
The Persona
Synthesizing the data from real users, our team affinity mapped all of this qualitative information to find overall pain points. As we start our iterating process, it is valuable to reference the user we are designing for.
Nora’s Journey
Mapping the interaction between the product and the user really helped our team understand wherein the journey our Persona will face pain points.
Through our research and the experience map below, the user faces many hurdles of emotion when dealing with therapy.
Throughout our process, our team built a strong amount of sensitivity for users like Nora.
What was the problem?
Problem Statement
Nora struggles with high anxiety and now needs to participate in her regularly scheduled therapy sessions from home and online. Because of this, she needs a more immersive at-home therapy experience that’s easy to set up and covered by her insurance provider.
Feature Prioritization
MoSCoW Method
An easy way to schedule appointments and a simplified way to manage long-term appointments with VR.
A design that will be integrated into Oscar’s current platform. This will give existing users access and affordable for their users.
Implement a user “How to” path for new VR patients. This will establish trust in the new virtual reality platform and members will feel comfortable enough to use it on their own.
The Design
We iterated multiple design conversations where we gathered over Zoom and sketched out our ideas and shared them.
In collaboration, we came up with a simple user flow that focused on our Persona’s needs but kept Nora’s therapist in the loop and copied Oscar’s appointment booking process for future help.
Early Iterations of Our Solution
Here is a look at our very first wireflow. This design included familiar heuristics and formats from Oscar’s current app along with our first ideas of potential solutions.
Keeping Oscar’s flow and format
Feeling connected to the therapy session and therapist
A smooth transition into a VR session
Keeping therapy consistent for effectiveness
“You don’t get the same experience from home as you do in the [therapists] office.”
Testing For Clarity
Mood Feature - A/B Testing
Our mood-elevator interaction received varied feedback in previous tests, so we ran through two versions with users. After analyzing the results from testing, it was clear that users preferred a sliding scale when choosing an emotion.
“I think I am able to convey a more true emotion with the sliding scale. I may be feeling in between Ok and Not Good.”
Key Insights
Homepage
Problems
Virtual reality care section on the homepage was a little unclear.
Users thought that there was not enough indication of Virtual Reality Care.
Recommendations
VR CTA on Landing Page
A designated VR therapy menu
Session Onboarding
Problems
Users thought that the component would be given more options of moods to choose from.
Users did not understand where the information was going after they pressed submit.
Recommendations
More mood options were added in a linear fashion.
A brief response screen after mood evaluation component.
An indication of where the information was being sent was added with the option to skip that process.
New Appointments
Problems
Users were curious about reoccurring sessions, doesn't want to book an appointment every time. They don’t want to be the one to have to book sometimes.
Users were not confident the notes are from the Dr.
Recommendations
Add a ‘Request to repeat’ sessions for therapist.
Clarify language for user regarding notes.
The Prototype
*App menu format, date picker, and font styles reflect Oscar’s current format and styles.
Next Steps
Merging the experience of the patient and provider to better help Oscar’s customers with authentic sessions.
Determine what Oscar’s Provider Portal currently offers.
Analyze how successful telemedicine with Dr. & Patient with testing.
Determine the Doctor’s needs with hosting VR sessions.
