Beth Wernet Beth Wernet
Projects
- MyMSK

MyMSK

A care management app for patients and caregivers.

Client: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Role: User Research, Product Design
Time Period: September 2014 - February 2015
Problem
MSK had created its first mobile care management app, and was getting ready to launch it to their entire patient population. Because of the nature of medical data, it had not yet been tested by active patients as they experienced the complexities of cancer care. I was brought on to run a small pilot with patients in two of their clinics, and use those findings to finalize the design, making any final ux and ui changes based on their experience.
Role
  • Ran user research alongside one other designer, which consisted of usability labs, a longitudinal diary study of several patients interacting with a beta version of the app, and interviews with clinic staff to understand the impacts (if any) the app had on their workflow
  • Prioritized and implemented UX/UI changes based on user research, working directly with two engineers
A patient testing the app while receiving chemotherapy - underlining the need for the app to work for someone who can only use it one-handed.
Approach
The pilot study was conducted over the course of two months in two of MSK’s lymphoma clinics. The time period was chosen so that patients might have time to interact with the app over several cycles of clinic visits and/or treatment. We collected feedback through diary studies, in person interviews, and task-based usability studies conducted before or after patient visits.
We then prioritized changes for launch, running several development sprints with MSKs internal development team.
What We Found
There were several key areas that we priorized for changes before launch, that were either under considered in the original scope of the app, or only came to light as we watched real people interact with the product. The main areas changed were:
Onboarding Experience

The initial setup of the app was key, as the security required by health regulations necessitated that the user jump through several extra hoops. The user’s experience of the app was improved greatly by setting a passcode (rather than entering their password every time they opened the app. We changed the onboarding to make this call to action more clear, moving the “skip” option to a link to make it less prominent in the hierarchy.

Navigational Structure Mental Models

The app allowed users to keep a list of their medications, set themselves medication reminders, and keep a diary of their medication doses, symptoms, and vital signs. It was initially constructed so that these features lived in the sections:

  • Medications
  • Reminders
  • Diary

We soon realized that this confused almost everyone, as the three medication features (keeping a list, setting reminders, tracking doses) while users expected to find these functions together. We made the call to re-organize the navigation before launch, grouping all medication features together.

Time Zones

We had a patient in our pilot who was traveling across time zones to receive care. The app was originally coded display the local time of the phone, which cause all her doctor’s appointments to show up two hours off. Simple bug, right? The time should always display MSK local time, right? This became an unexpected conundrum when we factored in medication reminders, that sent us researching best practices for taking prescription medications across time zones. The solution: appointments should stick to Eastern Time, medication reminders travel with the user.

Medication Reminders

The app was originally designed so that if a user set medication reminders, they would display at the top of the medication diary, with prompts for them to log whether they took or didn’t take their medication. However, if the user didn’t log their medication before the next reminder popped up, the next reminder would just cover the original one, with no indication of which was the active reminder. There was also indication of what reminders were upcoming, and in the event someone took their medication a bit early they had no way to clear the upcoming reminder.

Being mindful of “chemo brain” and the amount of information patients needed to manage, it was important to clear up any confusion from this section. We decided to show upcoming reminders for the day as collapsed. When a reminder became “active” it would pop open and display full tracking features. Users could also open each upcoming reminder and log them in advance if needed. Additional medication management interactions were explored in the MSK Meds app, conceived as a companion medication management app.

A document describing the new behavior of the medication reminders for development partners.
Outcomes

The app was launched in February 2015 and was adopted by over 14,000 patients in it’s first year, with usage continuing to grow. It was instrumental in Memorial Sloan Kettering continuing to invest in innovative digital patient care initiatives, reshaping how it thinks about interacting with it’s patients.