Bryant Mao

X-PRIZE

Prototyping the Future of Personal Healthcare

UX/UI, IOT, Mobile, Wearable

In 2012, Xprize launched the Qualcomm Tricorder XPRIZE, a $10 million global competition to incentivize innovation in personal healthcare. The mobile company HTC see the chance to use its technology to make health more accessible. The question is, how might we bring the bulky health devices and know-how into people's daily life?

Challenge

Today, very few methods exist for consumers to receive direct medical care without seeing a healthcare professional at a clinic or hospital, creating an access bottleneck.

With the medical competition launched by Xprize, HTC sees the opportunity to combine its mobile technology with the local medical resources to unlock growth in the new market by bringing precision diagnostics into people's daily lives.

My Role

I led four designers to build the product from scratch. This included UX strategy, user and technical research, interaction and product design, prototype and testing, design system, and implementation.

The Healthcare system today is extremely costly and inefficient

Approach

Using limitation as a drive for innovation

The challenge's goal is clear: to accurately capture 13 conditions and 5 real-time vital signs in the 72hrs test period via a system that is no more than 5 pounds.

What's unclear is the complexity of the problem, so we kickstart our exploration into three areas: the user's needs, the disease know-how, and technology possibility.

By collaborating with physicians and research labs, we build prototypes in different fidelity to probe user scenarios, uncover new diagnostic methods and validate test accuracy. The limitation forces the team to think out of the box and bring unconventional solutions through the iterative cycles.

Research

Empathizing user scenarios and needs

Without the health profession's presence, we need to make sure anyone can use the system even with no technical know-how and poor health condition. With limited access to our users, we interviewed people with a similar profile, built the hypothetical persona and user journey based on the guidelines. As the insights unfold, a few needs are clear for the team to address on

Make the system easy and fast since people might use it under severe pain

The system should be compact and comfortable so people can wear it for a long time.

The test should easily pause and resume to fit people’s busy schedule.

Research

Learning diagnostic know-how from the best practice

To build a robust diagnostic system, we partnered with two top medical centers in Taiwan (NTUH and CGH) to tackle the different diseases. We interviewed doctors to learn about each condition while observing how they applied the treatment in the field. We also worked with Dr. Andrew from MGH to study how to use triage to boost diagnostic speed and avoid unnecessary tests.

Research

Explore emerging technology with research labs

To fit the system into the 5-pound limitation, we collaborated with the leading research labs (NTU, NCU, NTHU, NCKU) in Taiwan to explore possible technology to reduce the weight. We then evaluated the trade-offs with engineers, tested the experience and effectiveness with proof of concept, and identified a set of candidates as the system's final building blocks.

Design

Defining the diagnose strategy and approach

With a holistic understanding of users, diseases, and technology, we are ready to build the system from the ground up. We first identify a high-level diagnostic flow then dive into the diagnostic approach for each disease.

Considering all the limitations, we decide to use mobile as a central agent to guide the user through the diagnostic journey and connect it with four gadgets to collect the necessary biomarkers (ex. blood).

Design

Gadget: do what the mobile can’t do

The 5-pound limitation and development cost force us to leave the gadgets with essential parts that mobile can not replace, such as high-resolution camera and electrical probe. With the engineer's help, we built prototypes in various fidelities to explore the form factor until a design emerged that balances usability, feasibility, and aesthetics.

Design

Mapped out the app flows and architecture

As the diagnostic approach stabilized, we mapped out all the diagnostic flows for the 13 conditions and five real-time vital signs monitoring. Since a non-tech savvy user needs to complete a considerable amount of tasks in a given period, we strived to simplify the app structure by reducing layers and using a step-by-step model to minimize the navigation hurdle. We also ​develop a design language to ensure the experience is consistent across digital and physical.

Testing

Iterating toward a delightful and robust experience

Throughout the design journey, we keep working with QAs, Doctors, and the Xprize crew to validate our assumption in different settings from concept to simple interaction.

Dogfooding

We constantly sent working prototypes for our colleagues to play with it and report issues they encounter. This simple act helps us uncover many bugs and edge cases, such as battery burnout and connection problems, helping us build a much stable and comprehensive system.

IRB Test

We conducted IRB tests in the clinic for diseases using the new diagnosis method like Shingles and COPD. We invited patients to try the system and compare results with the conventional approach. While the goal was primarily focused on diagnosis accuracy, we also discovered several pain points and design opportunities to improve the experience further.

Testing

Remote User Testing

Before submission, the Xprize Foundation offers a chance to test our system and get feedback from five actual users. These people are mixed demographic and have one or more of the 13 target conditions (including the absence of disease). We observed and interviewed the participant remotely. We also analyzed system logs and experience scoresheets to spot the area of improvement for the final design.​

Instruction is clear enough for the participant to conduct the test without any helps.

Participants were surprised by the novelty and simplicity of the new test method.

Participants like to see more lifestyle suggestions in health education.

“The instruction is very clear, I feel confident to use the system.”

Participant 2

San Diego, CA

Outcome

The final submission wins the 2nd place of Xprize out of 300+ teams worldwide, with high scores on user experience and diagnostic accuracy. Several breakthroughs of the test method also lead to patents in both medical and engineering. The accumulated know-how also set a foundation to give birth to a new startup.

Final design

After 18 months of endeavor, we finally launched the product. The final system consists of a mobile app and four distinct gadgets. Together, they allow anyone to measure 13 diseases and 5 vital signs without any help from the medical profession. All the elements were tight into a compact health kit, which aims to attract people to rethink healthcare by managing and making sensible decisions on their health.

  • 01. All-in-one health kits
  • 02. Fool-proof interaction
  • 03 Innovative Test method

01

All-in-one health kits

Build for portability

One primary cause that stops people from accessing healthcare is that the health devices are too bulky to move around. We put all our efforts into shrinking and integrating the diagnose devices, allowing any health worker or patient to bring the kit and run the diagnostic in any place.

Comfort and Discreet

No one wants to seem stupid, even when conducting a medical test. So we made the gadgets as discreet and comfortable as possible while reducing the required test time. The friendly-looking also encourage people to try or even proud to wear it.

02

Fool-proof interaction

Speedy triage

No one wants to go through all 13 tests just to identify their conditions. so we design a screening questionnaire based on the ER triage strategy. A user is expected to know their condition in less than three diagnostic tests by analyzing the symptoms and risk factors.

Personalize test plan

Without health knowledge, a user is impossible to set up a test plan properly. We help users to generate diagnostic plans based on their symptoms and lifestyles. The system will notify when to conduct which test while keeping the user informed of their test results.

Step-by-step guidance

Considering the various user types, we strive to make the system as fool-proof as possible. We broke each diagnostic flow into five sections: 1) Intro, 2) Tutorial, 3) Setup 4) Test 5) Result and education. The step-by-step guidance helps the user focus on one thing at a time, finish the test smoothly even without any medical or technical know-how.

03

Innovative Test method

Shingles

Traditionally, Shingles required a doctor to diagnose based on the history of pain distribution, along with the telltale rash and blisters. We build a more straightforward diagnostic process combining a questionnaire and a self-report drawing task. Users can finish the test in just in 3mins with 85% accuracy.

Urine collection

Anyone who has done a urine test knows it's a terrible experience - dirty, embarrassed, and took forever to get the result. Not to mention the health worker needs to dip the test paper into someone else’s urine, which is not ideal. We create a urine stick that allows the user to pee directly on the test paper, cap it, send for a test, and get the result in 5 mins, with similar accuracy.

Reflection

Having a hypothetical persona and scenario is better than none. It put everyone on the same page.

Design system/guideline is essential when the team starts to grow, start small, and iterate along the way.​

Embrace the limitation. It drives breakthrough by forcing you to look for unconventional solutions.

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