“I just feel my anxiety is going off the rails. I’m constantly questioning what is just a regular toddler cough, what is an asthmatic cough…”

PARENT PROBLEM

85%

increase in ease of connection

users felt the flow and app was inviting and intuitive

100%

AsthmaConnect

THE SOLUTION

Project aim:

  • To address inadequate support or direction for parents of children with asthma and asthma-like symptoms through typical Google searches

My initial research suggested:

  • Lack of support

  • Difficulty finding answers or direction

  • Leading to burnout and worry among caregivers

  • Turning to Reddit & Quora

Task Completion

5 of 6 users were able to complete the task of logging in and finding a group successfully.

Efficiency

4 users said they completed the expected task in under 5 minutes.

All users said they would like to have a place to go specifically for this purpose to save burnout.

Conceptualizing

Finding that doing some whiteboarding to conceptualize the connection tool helped get focus on what the app should do and where it should start. Helped narrow down the immediate needs that solved the problem of lack of connection for parents and caregivers.

RESEARCH DETAILS

Competitive and Comparative Analysis

While undergoing competitive and comparative analysis, I found that there wasn’t a focused place to connect with others in this situation. For these parents, this could be life or death of whether or not to bring in their children to the ER. Having a place for reassurance and connection matters.

Unmoderated Usability Testing

By putting this in the hands of 6 participants after the initial phase helped narrow our focus and brought to light that they wanted it more usable on mobile and they wanted more; more features, more ways to connect, and more resources.

Refinement using:

  • Design heuristics

  • User feedback via usability testing

Feedback changes made:

  • Added notifications

  • Updated the design to be more responsive and mobile-friendly

  • Included more detail in the ‘What’s coming next?’ section on the “Learn More” on the main homepage telling users what’s coming up

Feedback implementation examples:

When the browser is resized, fixed alignment of Trending topics

Adding more intuitive “how to” find Groups to the blank state

Notifications added to the dashboard to be able to see when the logged in user has a connection request.