Next Steps

  • About the project

    Next Steps is a popular rehabilitation program created by the Stroke Recovery Association of BC. The program provides stroke survivors with a way to meet other people while working on their mobility skills at a local mall. Each branch has a coordinator that meets the survivors (known throughout the program as “walkers”), and they take turns walking laps around the mall (the size of the laps depending on their current mobility level).

    I was on a team consisting of two UX designers and two UI designers. We were given three weeks to design an app where coordinators can store the important health information of each survivor, while tracking their progress!

  • My role

    UX Designer

01

Meet the client

 

For many stroke survivors, life after leaving out-patient care can be daunting. There are very little resources for social reintegration and community building, so many people feel lost and confused after leaving the hospital programs.

That’s where our client comes in.

The Stroke Recovery Association of BC works to bridge that gap, using a multitude of programs to help stroke survivors and caregivers find resources for physical rehabilitation and, more importantly, social support.

 
 
“We want people to know that there is life after stroke.”
— A coordinator for Next Steps
 
 

After the kickoff meeting, we quickly determined what the business goal was for our client: to receive more funding. The issue? There was no unified way for the coordinators to track the progress of their walkers, and what little information was stored (usually by traditional means with paper and pen) was easily lost. This made it difficult to receive funding as there was no data to show the walkers’ improvement, and there was no qualitative way to show the positive social impact the program has on the participants.

Our project goal? to help the coordinators track the walkers’ progress, attendance, medical information, and their goals in a unified and efficient way.

 
 
 

02

Research

We were able to conduct 6 interviews (both over the phone and in person) with coordinators from Next Steps, and ended up receiving 16 survey responses.

 
 
 

From these responses, we found some key insights:

  • There was no accurate measurement of progress.

  • It was difficult for coordinators and caregivers to find the time to input the data, so often it was missed.

  • All coordinators emphasized the importance of the social aspect among the walkers.

  • The primary motivation for walkers is to gain independence from their caregivers and spouses.

  • Tracking the walkers’ information and attendance was the biggest pain point for coordinators, as it was both inconvenient and inefficient.

 

One coordinator mentioned that prior to using laps to count the walkers’ progress, they tried counting their steps using pedometers. This ultimately failed because the walkers would often shake the devices in order to show more steps than they actually walked.

 
 

After completing the contextual inquiry at our local mall, we were able to make journey maps for both the coordinators and the walkers, indicating their pain points as well as their happier moments.

 
 

Walker journey map:

 

For the walkers, the main pain point was when they were leaving home to get to the session. Many of them relied on other people for transportation (or services like HandyDART) which meant that the time that everyone arrived to the mall varied greatly.

 

Coordinator journey map:

For the coordinators, the pain point was once the session had ended and they needed to input the number of laps everyone completed and send it to head office. Inputting their notes into excel spreadsheets was a tedious and dull task, and for coordinators that weren’t able to spend the extra time after the session to complete it they often fell behind and missed information.

It was at this point that we decided to use time spent moving as an indicator of progress, rather than number of labs completed. This seemed to be the most accurate way to track mobility progress considering the fact that many of the walkers were unable to complete laps around the mall to start with!

 

03

Planning

After compiling our research findings and going over the user data, we were able to make two user personas: one for the coordinators, and one for the walkers.

 
 

Our coordinator persona

Our walker persona

 

Because there were two users, we needed to create two separate user flows and combine them, creating this:

 
 

Bill’s flow was very straightforward: the only things they could do with the app is to view their progress and create goals. Ann, on the other hand, would be able to:

a) Start a walking session with the group

b) Take attendance for the session

c) Track time spent moving

f) Check off any completed goals for the walkers

 
 
 

The onboarding process was the most complex for the two flows, as the walker had to enter all of their personal and medical information (information that they used to fill out in various paperwork prior to starting the program, which would commonly get lost or forgotten), as well as create new goals to start.

The coordinators would also need to input personal information for their own profile, as well as create the groups they were in charge of. This included selecting the location, time, and members of each group (when a walker is selected as part of a group, it would then automatically appear on the walker’s profile).

04

Design

After finishing the planning portion, the other UX designer and I moved onto prototyping. We created wireframes in the form of paper prototypes that we then tested to check their usability. After going through a few different iterations with the paper prototypes and then the mid-fidelity screens, our UI team moved onto the high-fidelity screens!

 
 

Coordinators

For the coordinator flow, one of the main goals was to have a way to store walker information all in one place. This included essential information like emergency and medical contacts, their goals, and what aids they require. When the walkers create their accounts, they input their personal and medical information which the coordinators can then access from their own accounts.

Another user goal was being able to track and record the walkers’ progress. Here you can see the attendance and timer screens that the coordinators have access to when they start a new session. By incorporating a tab at the top of the page, the coordinator is able to easily switch from taking attendance and tracking how long everyone has been moving without leaving the page! Because the walkers arrived to the session at different times, the tabs made it as seamless as possible for the coordinator to manage everyone’s time, regardless of when they got in.

 

Walkers

For the walker flow, they needed to be able to view their progress and create goals. Because their mobility progress happened so gradually, it was easy for them to get discouraged from not seeing obvious improvement. But when their coordinator times them during the session, the walkers will be able to compare their times and achieve different stamps depending on which goals they set!

They’ll also be prompted with a screen to rate their experience after each session. This information will be available to the coordinators who can then use their improved times and satisfaction rates as evidence of the program’s efficacy!