Web app + Mobile app EVV solution

Documentor Webapp Documentor Mobile

Project background

6 Months

1 UX designers
4 Full-stack web developers

Build-on project

Overview

DocuMentor is an electronic visit verification (EVV) solution used to verify visit activity for home health, home care and hospice.

Electronic Visit Verification is a system for tracking work performed, hours, notes, accurate location information and much more about the patient-caregiver interaction, including information about the service provider. EVV applies to care and health services rendered in the home. The purpose of EVV is to ensure that services are delivered to people needing those services and that providers only bill for services rendered.

Users

Caregivers

Individuals who provide care and services to clients and carry out overall needs and plan of care. Caregivers can be family members or professional caregivers. Some services are also provided by Therapy Professionals, Behavioral Consultants, Music Therapists, Speech Therapists etc.

Customers

Provider Admins and Supervisors

They can be owners of an agency or the provider's employees who manages caregivers, assigns clients and/or set schedules for the caregivers. They make sure that hours used per client are within budget. They also review notes for each service and approves them for billing.

🤔 Problem

Caregivers are not clocking hours and recording notes in the app but instead they are still doing it on paper which causes inaccuracy and late submissions.

Why are we solving this problem?

  • Providers will have a harder time monitoring hours and budget allotted for a service.
  • Causes delays on billing and reimbursement
  • Providers may feel that they’re not getting enough ROI

🎯 Goal

Increase user adaption by improving user flow and fixing usability issues on the caregiver dashboard.

Process

User Experience Audit

Because I'm doing a re-design, I wanted to first evaluate the current state of the app, learn about it's functionalities and all the features. What is does and what it doesn't do. It was apparent that the dashboard for both the caregiver and admin has usability issues and forms that opens in a modal and another modal inside of a modal.

DocuMentor Audit 1

Usability Issues

  • Other parts of the dashboard are hidden in a hamburger menu
  • Icons does not indicate the status of a session.
  • Providers may feel that they’re not getting enough ROI
  • Lacks visual hierarchy
DocuMentor Audit 2

Usability Issues

  • Use of modals for almost all forms
  • Nested modals is not a good practice for usability
  • Not optimized to be viewed on mobile

Research Methods and Goals

Since our customers are located in Indiana which is a different state from where I am, I conducted remote interviews and usability testing. They are customers who are already using our product so I wanted to gain insight on the nuances of how they use the product, understand their motivation and most of all understand why caregivers are not using the app more regularly.

DocuMentor Audit 1

Caregiver Interview Goals

Learn about when and how caregivers use the app and what their pain points are in using the app.

Admin Interview Goals

Learn about their pain points in monitoring caregivers’ schedule and generating monthly reports.

Research Data Analysis

Affinity Mapping 1

I did an affinity mapping by organizing responses based on painpoints and then further sort them by what feature or functionality the friction points are. By classifying information in this way, it was easier to identify problems and common issues. It was also more digestible to stakeholders and team members.

Notes and Hours, Reports and Forms, Budget Monitoring, Usability, Scheduling and Notifications are the areas where problems needed solving.

Affinity Mapping 2

User and Process Flows

Mapping out the hours and notes submission process helped us identify the different stages that a session go through and how it correlates to the caregiver's hours and notes submission.

Hour Notes
Caregivers User Flow

Design Explorations

Without hours and notes input from the caregivers, the system will not be able to generate any data or report and will basically render the app useless. The main goal of the first iteration is to improve the hours and note entry experience for caregivers and dashboard utilization for providers/admin.

Goals:

  • Design and iterate for the first feature release
  • Refactor and incorporate existing functional user flows
  • Use Ant Design System components to accelerate development

Without hours and notes input from the caregivers, the system will not be able to generate any data or report and will basically render the app useless. The main goal of the first iteration is how to improve the hours and note entry for caregivers and dashboard utilization for providers/admin.

Caregiver mid-fidelity wireframes

Problem:

  • The Dashboard is not user-friendly
  • The meaning of icons is not clear
  • The user does not know where to click to add notes

Solution:

Make the clock-in and clock out more visible and having the add note functiontioanality attached to the current or past schedule. The other parts of the dashboard is also more accessible on a sidebar menu.

Solution:

Refactoring clock-in and clock-out modals to fix information hierarchy.

Problem:

  • It’s hard to fill out notes cause the modal is small especially on a mobile device.
  • The nested modals is not a good experience

Solution:

Removing nested modals and opening notes in a new page.

Low-Fidelity Mobile responsive

Caregiver Mobile-App Solution

A mobile app for recording hours and notes is the best solution for caregivers so they can clock-in, clock-out and add notes in real-time. These days, almost everyone has a phone but not everyone has a desktop or laptop. Since caregivers are always on the go whether they are inside the client’s home or outside accompanying their clients to doctor’s appointments, they can easily record their notes and hours.

High-Fidelity

✨ Impact: Secured VC Funding

The design changes achieved our goal and cemented the viability of the product which ultimately helped the company to secure VC funding to take the product to its next phase. During usability testing, feedback from the customers were very positive regarding the improvements and were excited and looking forward to using the new app. By solving the usability problem, we also fed two birds with one scone.

Learnings and takeaways

I discovered that I really liked talking to our customers and getting to know them.

Conducting user interviews by myself was a daunting task. As an introvert, I prefer to be the note-taker or just sitting in to observe when doing user interviews with other designers. But since I was the only UX designer, I had to step-up to the plate. While doing user interviews, I discovered that asking questions is an art -- the art of not asking leading questions! I learned how to ask the right questions to get really useful and unique insights. I also loved hearing about their backstory and their journey. Through these experience, I learned that our customers are some of the most patient people, willing to wait for the updates that we're making. And most of all, I learned how passionate they were in giving the best care to their clients which inspired me more to help them solve their problems.

Document your work. Document everything!

Create a document as a single source of truth for documentation and handoff is so valuable. There is also great value in doing a version control of the design that are created. When you don't overwrite changes in your design files, other people can see the progress. When you go back to your explorations you may find hidden gems that you might be able to use for something else. I definitely could have done a better job capturing everything especially ideas from brainstorming sessions. To be safe, just screenshot everything.

Cross-functional collaboration is really helpful.

Since I was the only UX Designer in the team, I relied on our developers for brainstorming and was able to bounce ideas off of them. Designers are not the only ones with great ideas, developers also have good ideas. Consulting with them early on is especially helpful to know how complex a feature or functionality will be. And by doing that, you can easily make adjustments before going full high-fidelity. Our business development team is a trove of valuable information. Because they give product demos, onboard our customers, and also find customers, they receive first-hand information from our customers about their struggles, needs and wants. I really learned a lot from them and had gotten valuable insights.

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