Three years ago, my grandma in China was diagnosed with diabetes. Now in the U.S., our communication is limited to video calls, where I can only remind her to take her meds. This ongoing situation deeply stresses and worries me.
While researching seniors' medical adherence with three classmates,, we discovered that 30-50% of older adults in the United States may struggle with poor medical adherence, like my grandma. Our team aims to increase seniors' medication adherence through this project.
I mainly led the user research, prototyping, wireframing and usability testing. Additionally, I collaborated with other one team member to create design guide.
UX Design &
UX Research
Figma, miro
Aug 2022 - Dec 2022
As a caregiver, I naturally assume that my grandma doesn't take medications on time due to aging and stubbornness. However, according to J. Mark Ruscin (2021), up to half of older people, like my grandma, do not take medications as directed by their doctors.
"How can we utilize current technology to effectively and intuitively assist senior citizens in maintaining medication adherence?"
When caregiver receives the notification of a senior missing medication, they can send personalized voice reminders.
Simply using a photo to mark completed reminders and record moods.
Gain points by completing everyday tasks and redeem personalized rewards to motivate seniors and caregivers work together.
01. Seniors struggle with medications due to forgetfulness, lack of trust and motivation, complexity of medication schedules.
02. Family members play a key role in supporting medication adherence by providing reminders, encouragement, and assistance.
03. Seniors use mobile apps only depending on how acceptable and accessible they are.
01. Design intuitive interfaces that incorporate minimal steps while prioritizing essential features, thus enabling daily reminders.
02. Enhanced accessibility for all features, incorporating the ability to rely on family members for input modalities and utilize voice assistants.
03. Implementing a community feature to cultivate a supportive environment where users can communicate and discuss health concerns.
Task completion, user interaction with the user interface, and pos-task protocols
1. Account Set Up
2. Add Medication/Health Tracker
3. Create Community Circle
8 Seniors aged from 62 - 68 years old
5 Family members aged from 25 - 40 years old
Task completion time, Efficiency, and Error Rate
Usability testing, Peer critique, in-class critique
1. Account Set Up
2. Send Reminder
3. Reward plan
5 Seniors aged from 62 - 68 years old
3 Family members aged from 25 - 40 years old
Task completion time, Efficiency, and Error Rate
Caregivers play an important role in the registration process by filling out patient information and setting up medication reminders.
Interactive prototypes
Caregivers play an important role in the registration process by filling out patient information and setting up medication reminders.
Interactive prototypes
Collaborative rewards as a way to strengthen the relationship between patient and caregiver as a result of working towards a shared goal.
Interactive prototypes
01. Empathy made this project success.
As my first design project at UofM, I recognized that our team couldn't proceed without interviewing senior citizens and conducting usability testing. Through these interviews, we, as designers and caregivers, gained a better understanding of the real needs of seniors. This insight guided us in the right direction.
02. Collaboration is the key.
Every member of the team comes from a different background, and discussing this topic brought us together to work collaboratively. Through working with people from diverse cultures, I had the opportunity to learn about various cultural backgrounds and interview senior citizens from different races. This experience greatly helped us gain diverse perspectives and overcome cultural barriers.
I spoke with one of my professors who specializes in medical research. If I have more time, I aim to focus on reducing users' cognitive load by associating the medication with our app and categorizing the medication using color-coded labels.
