Trial Awareness
ClinOne's Trial Awareness product automates the clinical trial recruitment process making it more efficient to connect patients to clinical trials.
I created a more user-friendly interface for doctors who are considering referring a patient to a clinical trial. As a result, conversions via contact form submissions have increased 200% over 2 months and 33% over all time.
CLIENT
ClinOne
ROLE
UX Researcher
UX Designer
TIMELINE
4 weeks
DELIVERABLES
User Persona
UX Audit
Context Scenario
Low-fid wireframes
Usability Testing
High-fid prototype
TOOLS
Figma
Zeplin
OPPORTUNITY
ClinOne had a goal to increase user conversions
ClinOne wanted to grow the number of potential patient referrals via its Trial Awareness product. It suspected there were issues in the product's design that prevented this ideal growth. Increased contact form submissions through trial webpages signal to customers (the Sponsors of Clinical Research) a higher likelihood of new patients who make their research studies possible.
Trial Awareness provides incredible impact. It effectively increases the likelihood that doctors connect their patients to a relevant clinical trial, its Researchers, and the organization sponsoring that research.
How does the Trial Awareness product work?
Step 1
ClinOne emails doctors with links to study pages for actively recruiting research trials
Step 2
Doctors open up a Trial Awareness study page from their monthly email
Step 3
From the study page, doctors can submit a form indicating their interest in referring a patient
Due to the tight turnaround I created a persona of known behaviors about our primary user group - doctors considering referring their patient - by combining previous market research, interviews with internal SMEs, and my own secondary research as a reference for prototypes.
Understanding user behavior provided useful criteria for evaluating whether my designs would be impactful.
To understand the problem space, I started with our users, their goals and challenges
DISCOVER - USER PERSONA
DISCOVER - USER PERSONA
Meet Dr. Jacqui Revill
This is a snippet of a more in-depth user persona.
ABOUT
I'm an Oncologist based in the DC area.
CHALLENGES
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I am incredibly busy.
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I learn that trials I had in mind for a patient don't work well for their transportation, logistics needs.
GOALS
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I want to keep my patients safe.
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I want to refer my patient to a Researcher and research sites that I trust.
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I try to refer patients that are not improving on the standard of care to a relevant clinical trial.
DISCOVER - UX AUDIT
I identified usability issues that prevented users, like Dr. Revill, from converting and submitting a contact form
Dr. Revill wanted to refer patients to clinical trial sites she trusted, but in the former interface, she had no way to choose a specific site to send her referral. Her contact form would be sent to the closest clinical trial site, not necessarily her preferred option.
The former interface didn't show Dr. Revill the primary researchers at each clinical trial site, which was at odds with her decision-making behavior. Since Dr. Revill wants to keep her patients safe and considers her trust in a Researcher before referring, it was important to display Researcher names in the new designs.
These issues led to the Problem Statement I set out to address.
DEFINE - THE PROBLEM STATEMENT
How might a doctor more quickly decide to contact a research site, so they can refer their patients to the best treatment option?
DEVELOP - LOW-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
I explored several solutions with low-fidelity sketches
Stakeholder Review process
I met with the technical and business stakeholders to get feedback, learn about their concerns, and assumptions early in the process.
Ideas that I prioritized after Stakeholder Review
List of Sites on the Study Landing page
Moving the user to a separate page where they could see the details of and directly contact a specific study location was not ideal - to compare sites users would need to open multiple tabs to get information on multiple sites. Instead, I opted to keep the user on the same page so they could compare study locations and locations' researchers before submitting their contact form all in the same page.
Ideas that I deprioritized after Stakeholder Review
Submitting interest via an email client
If a user clicked a link to send an email to ask questions or indicate their interest in referring a patient, our organization could not know if a user abandoned or completed that action. We could not provide support or metrics to our customers or their research sites, because we would not be able to confirm if the doctor submitted a contact form.
DEVELOP - CONTEXT SCENARIO
To build the right product faster, I built a prototype that tested my assumptions, not just the idea itself
First I outlined a story map indicating the persona's ideal experience with the solution I prototyped. I used the map to uncover my assumptions about the viability, feasibility, desirability, and usability of the product. I later tested my assumptions as suggested by Agile Coach Teresa Torres (author of Continuous Discovery Habits).
My first prototype let users select a study location to contact from a list. Selecting the Contact button updated the Contact Submission form panel to the right and set off a focus state. Submitting the form sent the message to the specific study location.
DEVELOP - USABILITY TESTING
I scaled the testing phase to fit a tight timeline and other constraints
User Testers
ClinOne’s team was growing quickly, so I reached out to four onboarding employees who could test usability of the initial prototype. These staff were the imperfect proxies for Healthcare Providers who were just starting to use our product.
My assumptions were wrong, and luckily I learned it well before any development work was underway
Would users find the correct next step after clicking on the contact button next to a Study Location?
No. The change happened too far from where testers anticipated a change. So, I removed the side panel web form.
Would users understand why the “Call a Study Team member” and “Contact a Study Team member” boxes changed to a focus state?
No. The focus state was not as obvious as I thought. Testers didn’t notice any changes on the screen when they clicked the Contact button. I changed the design so the contact form was nested inside the respective study location. Clicking “Contact” expanded the form and allowed the user to submit their form directly underneath the details of their preferred study location for their question/referral.
This is an excerpt from my usability testing report
It's not letting me click on anything. [When I clicked contact, I expected] another browser to open... or at least some confirmation that [a location has] been selected.
Usability Tester
DELIVER - HIGH-FIDELITY PROTOTYPE
After updating the prototype I handed-off the designs to Engineering
I used Zeplin to transfer Figma design files to a developer-friendly format and presented the work to engineers to clarify any interactions and use cases.
Since the launch of Trial Awareness, conversions increased 33% over all time and 200% 2 months after the launch of the new interface. Contact submission forms increase the likelihood of customers, doctors, and patients all meeting their goals, respectively: patient recruitment, best care for the patient, potential new course of treatment. This change in interface provided more value to our customers and our users.
New conversions after launch increased - so did the likelihood of our customers *and* users reaching their goals
DELIVER - METRICS
REFLECT
Looking back, there were areas I could have improved my process and overall design of the product
Communication
Learning from Engineers and Client Success earlier in the process
Since this project I've updated my process. In this scenario, Client Services would have provided me with metrics of interest for customers while Engineering would have provided insight on design decisions and engineers' capacity to complete them in a given number of sprints. These insights earlier on would likely have made the process from hand-off to operationalization more efficient.
UI Elements
Visibility of System Status
The confirmation toast in my final designs didn't specify a turnaround time, nor did I corroborate whether our email confirmation provided that either. It's since been updated accordingly.
Contrast
The interface lacks significant contrast across elements like typography, buttons, and other graphical elements. Items don't stand out from each other in a way that clearly communicates the hierarchy of information or CTAs more effectively. For instance, there isn't significant distinction between a Submit button and a contact button, though I want to make it easier for a user to know the next step in submitting a contact form.
In fact, I reiterated the designs for more visual engagement
Enough about me - tell me about how I can help you!
For project inquiries, you can email me at SarahMColoma@gmail.com or find me on LinkedIn. ✌️