Detailed case study
The case study in one sentence:
Continuous and improved interaction creates a close and harmonious relationship with customers.
PERS - Personal Emergency Response System
It’s not what service you provide but how you provide it that matters.
TYPE
Concept
DURATION
2-week sprint
TEAM
Neelam Shukla, Antonio Shi and Nikesh Tamrakar
METHOD
Business analysis, Competitive analysis, Interviews, surveys, Affinity mapping, Journey map, Feature prioritisation matrix, wireframing, prototyping.
MY ROLE
UX Designer
TOOLS
Pen and Paper, Figma and Miro
Solving interaction/communication issues and putting faith back in the company’s vision “we care about you.”
Overview
VitalCALL is a B2C company that provides PERS products and services. Their company’s logo states their vision “we care about you”. From the brief we received from the client, their main concern was to keep the sustained number of subscribers. There was a disconnect between the client’s vision and business. What was going wrong? After an initial discussion, we realised the issues were related to the communication in terms of regular updates. Customers felt that communication could be timely and effective. Customer doesn’t just want to be notified only in times of emergency but want peace of mind.
Objective
Our objective was to retain current subscribers by improving the service and by introducing a minimum viable product (MVP) that could solve interaction/communication issues between the service and the subscribers. We also had to keep the feasibility and viability aspects of the proposed solution.
We discovered that customers were not happy responding to the press button.
Business Analysis
After doing the business analysis, we found that the company was doing just to the point of what industry they were serving. They were responding to the user’s call during an emergency, and that’s where their service ends. Customers wanted more timely and effective communication before, during, and after an emergency. A mobile app update reduces that gap. Regular interaction with subscribers fosters trust in the company and peace of mind.
Competitors provide so much more because of their presence on a mobile platform/ mobile app—an avenue to explore.
Competitive and comparative Analysis
We used the UberEATS app as an inspiration to build the interface for our current design. Its feature of tracking the delivery in real-time is outstanding. We incorporated this feature into our design to track and update the information upon an emergency when the person wearing the alarm was getting transported to medical care.
Findings
Customer care portal via a mobile app for subscribing family member
Findings
Regular updates to the family member
Mandatory pressing of a button after 3 hours of getting up in the morning.
Complete medical history, in case of an emergency to be provoded to EMT.
Users were looking for more communication and connection with the service, not just a client number for the company.
User interviews and Affinity mapping
To gain knowledge of real experiences and feelings. We decided to interview people to understand their expectations during an emergency. We interviewed 16 people. We collected a lot of information to use Affinity mapping to synthesise the data and saw some emerging themes.
Findings
Services such as VitalCALL feel very transactional and lack communication between the service, subscriber and the person under care.
Subscribers need an interface to recieve updates regularly and check up on their loved ones.
Subscribers want their loved ones to feel safe, happy and supported as they subscribe to the service for their sake.
Loved ones under the care of the service do not want to be viewed in anegative light and wish to maintain their inpendence.
Who are we designing for?
Our “worried family member” helped us define the problem - more interaction from the organisation at all times.
From themes, we synthesised data into sub-categories to further understand the feelings and emotions of the users: our Archetype - the worried family member and their journey to discover pain points.
The Worried Family Member
Problem Statement
To achieve that, they must subscribe to a personal emergency response service. But when there are no updates and follow-ups during emergencies, the service becomes unreliable and ineffective.
Scenario
The worried family member is very busy juggling work, children, and caring for his old mom, who lives independently. His mom has had minor incidents/falls, where he reached late, which caused him much stress and anxiety about his mom’s health. He is looking for a service or help which could provide him with timely updates to prevent such incidents or any emergencies and gives him peace of mind.
Ideas, findings, and assumptions everywhere – let’s prioritise them and create a win-win for users and business.
Feature Priortisation Matrix
MVP Features
Emergency protocol feature -
Constant updates on the end user’s conditions, post-emergency service trigger,
to the caregiver
Daily morning check-in and end of the day aummary
Calendar for loved ones' upcoming events/procedures
Every good idea starts with white space.
Design studio
First sketch of MVP features. We did preliminary testing for feedback and did the following iterations.
First sketch
Feedback 1
Feedback 2
Feedback 3
It looks like this.
To get a better resolution, please enlarge the window by clicking on the right top corner of the Figma frame.
Next steps
1. More usability testing
2. Some other recommendations in consultation with business.
• Side button talk and notification
• Caregiver Tracking app ( Included with Mobile GPS subscription)
• Input/Edit Primary and secondary contacts
• Base box labels in the native language, poster made in the native language and posted next to the box
• Consider secondary user’s ethnicity (related to language)
Reflection
Create win-win scenario
Keep in mind the feasibility and viability from the business side when designing for users.
Build Archetypes, not personas.
Don’t worry about age, demography, and location but focus on the user’s goal, behaviour, needs, and motivations.
You are not the user
Try to keep your bias at bay. You are not making the changes to satisfy your ideas.