Overview
Mednote is a startup healthcare tech company aiming to disrupt the EMR market for small to medium practices. Unlike complex, enterprise-level systems, Mednote’s mission is to offer an affordable, cloud-based platform centred on simplicity and ease of use.
For this project, I identified the core user workflows critical for the MVP: Dashboard, Appointments, and Patient Profiles - as they address the most frequent pain points and highest-traffic areas for users.
Conceptual
Role:
UX Designer
Platform:
Web
Timeline:
Jul 2024 - Oct 2024
Problem
Healthcare practitioners struggle with cluttered dashboards, complicated appointment management, and difficult-to-navigate patient records in existing EMR systems. These inefficiencies often lead to frustration, wasted time, increased burnout, and a barrier to adoption for smaller clinics.
Goals
User goals:
Quickly manage appointments
Easily access patient data
Save time on administrative tasks
Business goals:
Increase adoption in a competitive market
Drive long-term customer retention
Build a reputation for simplicity and value
Constraints
No budget for primary user research or testing incentives.
Workaround:
I leveraged secondary research with a clear plan for primary validation in a real-world scenario.
Research insights
Methods
I conducted a comprehensive secondary research analysis, synthesising findings from:
Medical journals and healthcare IT articles.
Online forums and threads (e.g., r/medicine, r/healthIT) where practitioners voice frustrations.
Existing interviews with physicians and administrators.
Key Insights
My analysis revealed consistent themes across the industry:
Workflow disruption: Inefficient workflows, requiring multiple clicks for simple tasks.
Administrative burden: Excessive data entry turns clinicians into data clerks.
Patient interaction interference: Poor UI forces providers to focus on the screen, not the patient.
Data overload: Cluttered interfaces and alert fatigue make it hard to find critical information.
Affinity Mapping
Pain Points
The most pressing user frustrations are:
User Persona
User Journey Map
Outlining the typical experience of a healthcare provider interacting with other EMR software throughout their workday. It focuses on their key tasks, frustrations, and general interactions with the interface.
Mindmapping
User Flow
I designed a streamlined flow for adding a new patient and scheduling their first appointment, reducing a common multi-screen process into a simple, sequential task.
Wireframes
Dashboard: Provides a quick overview of the day. Prioritises upcoming appointments and patient alerts to reduce cognitive load and prep the provider for what's next.
Appointments: Features a clean, integrated calendar with one-click access to patient details. Designed to minimise clicks for common actions like rescheduling or chart review.
Patient Profile: Organises complex medical data (history, medications, labs) into clearly defined, tabbed sections. This structure allows for quick retrieval of information without endless scrolling.
Original Sketches:
Usability Tests
Due to budget constraints, formal testing with medical professionals was not possible. However, I conducted cognitive walkthroughs with two individuals to identify basic usability flaws and logical gaps in the user flow.
Task 1: Book an appointment
Task 2: Find and view a patient profile
Task 3: Add a new patient
FEEDBACK + ITERATION
These basic tasks were completed with ease. However, there was an iteration made based on feedback provided:
Modify the design of the Patient List page so that clicking on the patient name automatically opens their profile, instead of opening the preview and then requiring an additional click to get to the profile.
NEXT STEPS FOR VALIDATION
The first priority for the next phase would be to conduct moderated usability tests with 5 healthcare professionals, using a high-fidelity prototype to measure task success rates and time-on-task.
Solution
To streamline EMR workflows and improve usability for healthcare providers, I designed an intuitive, user-friendly interface that enhances efficiency in three key areas:
Simplified Dashboard for Quick Decision-Making
Designed a bento grid layout to provide an quick overview of critical information (Appointments, Upcoming Patients, Tasks, and Recent Activity).
The bento grid layout was chosen to combat 'Data Overload' by creating clear, distinct information containers.
Prioritised high-traffic elements (Appointments and Upcoming Patients) to reduce cognitive load.
The priority of 'Upcoming Patients' directly addresses the need for a 'Quick Clinical Overview' to prep the provider for their day.
Ensured a clean, minimal UI that avoids unnecessary distractions.
Streamlined Appointment Management
Created a clear and structured scheduling system to minimise time spent booking and managing appointments.
Integrated one-click access to patient details for seamless workflow navigation.
Intuitive Patient Profile for Faster Information Access
Organised patient history, medications, lab results, and notes into clearly defined sections for quick retrieval of critical data.
Designed an easy-to-use form for adding new patients, ensuring a smooth onboarding process.
Improved readability with a structured layout, reducing the time spent searching for information.
Accessibility
The interface was designed with accessibility in mind, adhering to WCAG guidelines, with color contrast for the black text (#262626) and blue (#164FC0) passed both WCAG AA and AAA levels.
Further accessibility considerations that would be implemented in development include text-alternatives for non-text content, as well as ensuring keyboard-only navigation as an option, and the option to adjust text size.
Expected outcomes
This user-centred design directly supports Mednote's business goals:
Adoption: A superior user experience becomes the key differentiator, driving adoption among smaller practices frustrated with complex systems.
KPI's:
Free-to-Paid Conversion Rate from sales data - aim for 15% increase
Number of new practice sign-ups per month
Efficiency: Streamlined workflows reduce time spent on administrative tasks, increasing practitioner productivity and capacity.
KPI:
Time-on-Task (e.g., time to schedule an appointment, time to add a new patient) and compare to industry benchmarks - expected to save an estimated 30 minutes per day on administrative tasks
System Usability Scale (SUS) Score to be above 68 - many EHR/EMR systems score below 68
Retention: An intuitive and less frustrating system reduces burnout, supporting long-term customer retention.
KPI's:
Net Promoter Score (NPS) from user surveys
Monthly Active Users (MAU)
User Churn Rate
Reflections and next steps
Strategic Scoping: Initially daunting, focusing on core features allowed for a deeper, more impactful solution rather than a superficial end-to-end design.
Resourcefulness: Constraints are not blockers. This project honed my skills in leveraging secondary research to make informed design decisions without a large budget.
GOING FORWARD
Conduct primary user research and usability testing to validate and refine prototypes.
Expand the design system to include mobile functionality for on-the-go access.
Explore features like voice-to-text data entry and AI-driven chart summaries to further reduce administrative burden.