Airy

Monitor your scoliosis health

THE MISSION

Designed to take the patient's physical well-being to another level.

YEAR

2022

THE IMPACT

- 36% more patients say Airy app helps their doctors to analyze if any treatment plan adjustment is needed due to better engagement in the worn time and exercise tracking.
- 100% of patients say Airy App helps them better track their brace worn time and communicate accurately with their therapist about their complaint issue.
- 76% of testers can correctly find out how to record their worn-time, access exercise tutorials, and update the scoliosis progression in the first 3 attempts.

SERVICES

User interaction design
Animation

MY ROLE

Product strategy
User research & Analysis
Persona creation
Wireframes
UI Design & Prototyping
Illustration/ Icon design
Usability testing

Hypothesis

Most scoliosis patients wouldn’t remember or record how many hours they have worn the brace every day. They either don't understand how adequate worn-time can help them effectively cure scoliosis, or they don't want doctors to know they have a compliance issue. For doctors. It's also a hassle to keep track of their patients’ treatment progress in a pile of paperwork.

‍“I believe that developing an app that records the patient's worn-time to assist in identifying the compliance issue, provides exercise to keep patient’s muscle engaged the whole time and facilitates direct contact with the doctor will increase the efficiency of scoliosis therapy.”

Result based on 15 SOSORT these

Qualitative research
‍I examined 15 SOSORT academic theses on scoliosis therapy and interviewed 4 scoliosis patients to gain insights into scoliosis progression and its treatment’s effectiveness.

‍Results:
- 84% of scoliosis patients have compliance problems: they wouldn't wear the brace for 18 hours a day.
- Scoliosis therapy has included a mandatory worn-time monitor in recent years.
- 69% of patients who completed Schroth therapy has improved their spinal deformity, compared to only 6% in patients who did not complete the exercises.
- Strengthening the core muscles helps preserve the natural curvature of the thoracic spine. Therefore, keeping muscles engaged when not wearing the brace is very helpful for spinal deformity.
- Every half year, the doctor will assess the new cobb angle of the patient to adjust their therapy plan.

Persona

Result based on 4 scoliosis patients

Based on the survey, I set up two personas. I referred to them throughout the entire product development process. I observed some significant differences between the female and male personas:
‍
- Boys are more concerned with if the brace looks and how it restricts their movement.
- Girls are more concerned with whether or not their peers notice that they wear a brace and how it leaves a bruise or mark on their body.

Taking all the lessons I learned from the personas, I decided to include a feature in my app where users could make requests for having a customized brace piece 3D printed that fits their need the most.

User Flow

The user flow describes the relation and hierarchy of all pages in order to assist patients in achieving their goals in the app.

Mid-fi to High-fi Prototype

I take the lessons I learned in research phase, and design the solutions for each points I heard from scolisois patients and from academic theses. I skipped low-fi phase, which mainly explores the layout of elements, because I designed the mid-fi prototype based on an existing health App, Spinamic.

Validation Test

I turned my prototype into an interactive prototype done with Figma where I defined UI elements, design patterns, and visual hierarchy. I tested the prototype with 7 users remotely on Maze with 4 missions and 3 questions:
- Check your past month's wearing time record.
- Find the therapy for today and finish the therapy.
- Find your spine's information.
- Set the alarm for every day's notification for wearing the brace.
- Can you find out what this App is for, almost at the first look?
- Did you figure out where is the navigation quickly?
- Do you think that you understand what each section is for on the home page?

‍Findings:
- Doctors wanted to know how many hours the patient had worn the brace during the daytime and nighttime.
- Users have missed important settings since they were unsure whether or not they could interact with them.
- Users valued the obvious separation of distinct functional elements.

‍Design solutions:
- A visual distinguishment of day and night worn-time.
- Adding shadows under button elements to imply it’s clickable.
- A navigation bar background to empathize with the hierarchy.

UI CMF

I After a few more iterations, I designed the final screens with Figma. I conducted A/B testings during the process to define the design pattern, elements and colours.My goal was to create a welcoming, clean look that helps users fulfill their goals fast without making them feel like they're dealing with an illness. "Airy" is a problem-solver; therefore, I focused on the color scheme to help transmit trust and reliability.