Helping patients find more clarity and confidence in everyday life
Epilepsy is a central nervous system (neurological) disorder in which brain activity becomes abnormal, causing seizures or periods of unusual behavior, sensations, and sometimes loss of awareness. It affects three million people in the US. 30% have Drug Resistant Epilepsy (DRE) where more than two medications fail to control seizures. Whilst alternative treatments exist, it can take patients seven to twenty years to get the right treatment.
A platform designed to help patients gain back their confidence while accelerating their journey to find the right treatment that works best for them.
Worked on the onboarding experience, the home experience, the logging experience and the education section. I joined forces with engineering, product and visual design to translate requirements into a beautifully crafted product. Made an impact by increasing the 30 days engagement rate by 200%, increase onboarding conversion by 300% and designed a notification system that enabled patients log seizures on time.
Worked on the interaction design including how patients would interact with the product and its core flows. Furthermore, I developed a system that maps out different types of notifications and nudges to encourage engagement. Part of it was setting up guides, individual use cases and a comprehensive combination of all the notifications. This made an impact by doubling the 30-day engagement rate.
Involved in user research and testing. Used methods like card sorting, journey mapping, prototypes, surveys, and more. The result was 1. an extensive understanding of our target audience, 2. improvements for current product experience and 3. an understanding of product roadmap. Designing for epilepsy comes with it challenges since there are many other conditions associated with epilepsy.
Manual diaries can be cumbersome and current digital tools don’t meet patients’ needs
An estimated 70% of drug resistant epilepsy patients are unaware of DRE and alternative treatment options
Many patients report feeling like they have no control - resulting in a loss of empowerment and proactivity about their treatment plans
Poor patient recollection of treatment adherence and seizure frequency makes consultations less effective
An estimated 70% of drug resistant epilepsy patients are unaware of DRE and alternative treatment options
Many patients report feeling like they have no control - resulting in a loss of empowerment and proactivity about their treatment plans
Track seizures, medication and more. Routines matter. Epsy lets the patient log daily medication and any changes in seizure patterns.
Many epilepsy patients aren't very rigid with tracking their seizures, medication and seizure triggers. There are not many efficient ways patients are able to track and collect their data consistently. Most patients use analog methods such as writing in a note book, on piece of paper, or trying to remember when being asked by the doctor.
While the main goal was to collect, contextualize, use patient data to their benefit we looked at a few smaller problems which will contribute to the overarching goal and a better outcome for the patient and doctor.
How might we...
... Gain seizure control
"I don't really know what triggers my seizures and there are so many different things which I can't consciously track."
Persona: Recently diagnosed and/or very severe
Stage: Early management
Goal: Seizure freedom/ management
... Minimise side effects
"I am currently taking three different meds and I am pretty sure only one of them works for my seizures. I want to get off the other ones to avoid unnecessary side effects."
Persona: Recently diagnosed and/or very severe
Stage: Bad medication experience/ or failed
Goal: Side effect management
... Manage life-stage Changes
"My seizure frequency changed when I went to college. I had to adjust how to handle this change. Now, I am pregnant, seizure frequency changed again and I am worried about the medication effects on my unborn child."
Persona: Transition stages (teen, college, etc.)
Stage: On-going treatment
Goal: Manage medication
... 360° view of treatment
"My child has been given the wrong dosage of meds at school and we didn't know until she got sick six weeks after. Now she's at camp and we don't know what is going on either."
Persona: Recently diagnosed and/or very severe
Stage: On-going treatment
Goal:Full view of patient's treatment success
User Experience
The product consists of five main components:
• The logging flow, to enable patients input seizure related information.
• The home-screen, to display the information in a contextual manner.
• A trends section to track seizure input over time and encourage patient-doctor conversations.
• Educating patients. Feeding relevant information to the patient for further epilepsy related educational media.
• A profile section in which patients compile their patient, carer, and medication information.
*Timeline & log sketches
*Seizure log sketches
Interaction Design
Knowing the technical proficiency of epilepsy patients I explored different levels of interactivity in the core flows. The majority of epilepsy patients have additional conditions which might disable visual, mental or haptic awareness.
Exploring options to make the experience personal and deliver daily insights to the patient.
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Looking at different ways a patient can understand high level patterns vs. details on a daily bases.
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Diving into the parallels of a diary and a digital log. We were exploring common behaviors and metaphors.
Missed meds & custom seizures
We all know that from time to time we miss a dosage. However, it is very critical to record these instances. Often times patients need to make sure they take their medication at very specific time. With that in mind we wanted to make sure we enable patients to indicate the specific time of a medication intake or a seizure log, even if it's late.
Logging the medication as late is important to understand the treatment effect.
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Talking with patients we've noticed that they often have common seizures. This flow shows a way of adding a custom seizure to shorten the logging flow in the future.
What they say:
Increased sense of control over the condition
"I have no idea why my seizures suddenly changed and are getting worse and this could really help keep track of what’s happening."
- Epilepsy patient
Better treatment decisions through data
"I feel this app could really help patients collect better data for their doctor appointments and stick to the medication schedule. For me seeing their history and response to recent treatment changes is valuable when evaluating treatment options."
- Epilepsy HCP
Many patients felt like they don't know enough about their condition and felt left alone. By creating a range of content we were able to educate patients and convey a feeling of comfort.
Seeing progress can be very rewarding and encouraging. Epsy helps to educate, motivate and build new habits by surfacing the right insights for patients.
Creating meaningful conversations with the doctor is important. Epsy does exactly that. It creates the foundation for appointments and allows doctors to make better and more accurate treatment decisions.
Epilepsy is a disease which is not curable. Often it comes with one or even two other chronic diseases which makes life even more challenging. Talking to epilepsy patients we acknowledged that every little moment that brings joy can make their day.
Enable patient's confidence. To improve a patient's life we would need them to log their medication, seizures, moods, side effects and any other events that they think might have influence on their day. To encourage the patients we used small but effective ways throughout the app to increase logging.
Every day is a unique one. To bring in the diverse events of each day we've designed the "epsy cards" each with its unique style while keeping the structure and layout the same to keep it consistent and legible.
Don't forget to _____. We ensure that patients are being kept on track with reminders and nudges which appear in and outside the app. It's important to build habits when it comes to their health. We took that very serious while designing nudges and reminders as engaging, empowering and useful.
In the early stage of the product launch the epsy onboarding was a crucial flow that wasn't working very well. The conversion rate was low. With a few changes, such as introducing the features early, and getting the user into the app fast, we were able to increase the conversion of epilepsy patients by 300%.
Bringing back the familiar. While we focus very much on designing the product specifically for epilepsy patients and HCPs we decided to use common interactions, patterns and illustrations to bring back familiarity. Emojis are very commonly used and patients loved these. They felt they were helpful to express their mood.
A little bit of dopamine. After each log we provide a custom message for the patient. While designing these we had to make sure we hit a fine balance of being encouraging and motivating and not patronizing.
These are just some insights of the work I put in, to create a memorable experience for epilepsy patients.
