Cancer Support App Focused on Positivity.

Competitive Analysis

I first looked into the market to determine whether existing apps were effectively helping patients understand their cancer treatment plan and offering proper support. I dove deeper into Outcomes4me and ACS Cares, which are two of the most popular cancer support apps available currently.

Pros

• Integration with medical records
• Evidence-based content
• Symptom tracking

Cons

• Lack of personalization
• Overwhelming information
• Limited emotional support
• No emphasis on optimism
• Only supports certain cancers

Pros

• Multilingual support
• Widely-accessible
• Reputable presented information

Cons

• Lack of personalization
• Limited support resources
• No emphasis on optimism
• No treatment visualization

It's evident that existing apps do have support resources and articles that inform users of their diagnosis. What's missing is the optimistic energy, personalization, and treatment visualization that breaks down the diagnosis into simpler terms. For my redesign, I wanted to focus on these key features.

Identifying App Problems

Doom Statistics

Here is an example google search for the survival rate of Glioblastoma. When patients see the 6.9% 5-year survival rate, specifically younger patients, they may be discouraged, which can lead to worsening of symptoms, furthering depression or anxiety. Instead of focusing solely on survival rates or grim statistics, I aimed to emphasize positive words of affirmation, treatment options, support resources, and success stories.

My first instinct was to emphasize positivity throughout the app, but it's also important to note that some people don't want hope, but rather realistic news and how to prepare with the inevitable. People need support with coming to terms with death rather than staying strong and surviving. It's important to consider edge cases and think about designing for the entire audience.

For my design, I wanted to emphasize positivity but also leave an option for those who want to be more realistic.

Lack of Support for Surrounding People

People who have loved ones or close friends in cancer treatment need support as well. Here is some evidence from my research supporting this fact. People often struggle with finding ways to support the people who are experiencing cancer.

High Button Clicks, High Friction

While testing out ACS CARES, the main app for cancer support, I noted the amount of time and clicks it took for a user to access the core features of the app.

12+ clicks just to access content.

5 minutes approximate time to onboard.

Lack of Personalized Content

This was the home screen for ACS CARES app. I signed up as someone “having a loved one with brain cancer”. As a user, I want to learn more about the specific cancer without having to look everywhere for relevant info. Also, the cancer options were more generalized. Instead of having the option for Oligodendroglioma, it grouped all the brain cancers together in a tab called “brain and special cancers”. When creating a support app, personalization needs to be emphasized. Users want to make sure their diagnosis is seen.

Interviews & Affinity Mapping

Before designing, I researched how patients handle cancer diagnoses and the challenges they face with support apps. I interviewed my friend and analyzed data from Reddit threads to identify paint points, feature ideas, and user needs, which I organized into an affinity map.

Research Findings

• The lack of personalization leads to a decrease in user engagement.
• People who are not familiar with medical jargon feel frightened even when doctors try to explain.
• Patients wished they had a community of people to talk to.
• Patients wanted more information about treatment/diagnosis to feel in control.

Users need personalization, a community, and context to feel more in control about their situation. In my redesign, I aimed to tackle all of these points.

Informed Brainstorming

With user problems in mind, I brainstormed potential solutions, without considering feasibility at this stage.

After going through the ideas, I narrowed down the features I wanted to design. I decided not to implement the integration with apple health kit for now due to time constraints and lack of user needs.

Core Features

Here were the 6 core features I looked to implement in my new design.

Personalized articles for cancer patients and surrounding patients

Treatment visualization to ease stress and provide context

Ability to save favorite articles, videos, or support groups

Users can watch success stories and persona anecdotes.

Support system for different groups.

Ability to volunteer and post success stories or videos to the app.

Wireframes & Sketches

Home Screen

Users can access personalized content and suggested support groups in the home screen.

Treatment Visualization

Users can view how their cancer treatment fights cancer.

User Input Flow

Instead of making users sign up right away, I delayed the account creation until it was absolutely necessary to prevent friction and decrease drop offs.*progressive onboarding

Low-Fi Prototype

I iterated upon my sketches and constructed these lo-fi prototypes to get some user feedback early in the process. If there was anything I needed to change, I could do so without having to sacrifice significant time or effort.

User Feedback

I tested my prototype with three users who were curious to learn more about different cancer treatments. All users liked the personalized articles and success stories that were introduced at the start. This was reassuring because these two functions were our primary focus, and what distinguishes us from existing apps.

While my ideal testing group would include real patients or people connected to patients, I recognized that accessing this group for testing at this stage would be challenging. Therefore, I decided to reserve testing with real patients for my high-fidelity interactive prototype, where their feedback will be most impactful.

Uncertainty over support groups

Some users noted that the regulation of these in-app support groups may be difficult.

1. How do we know that the advice or comfort that other people give is going to benefit the user?
2. How is the chat going to be regulated for positive and uplifting language?
3. How do we get users to join the groups if there are already established support groups as in Reddit or FaceBook?

With this in mind, I decided to remove the support groups function and focus on providing users with professional help that is consistent and is known to help.

Revised Design Features

Support Groups

• inconsistent support due to various coping methods (pessimism vs. optimism)
• lack of timely response
• lack of previous data, hard to get people to start posting on support groups

24/7 Professional Help

• 24/7 support system via call
• decreased regulation issues
• consistent, effective support and advice

Support groups sound great in theory. What can go wrong for a safe space where patients can share struggles and help each other? The vulnerability of cancer patients, combined with the potential for misinformation or harmful interactions, makes it too risky to let users provide support to one another.

Established platforms like Reddit, with their strict moderation and regulatory practices, are better equipped to handle these complexities.

To ensure consistency and safety, it's best to focus the app on consistent resources for professional help. Established platforms like Reddit, with their strict moderation and regulatory practices, are better equipped to handle these complexities.

Difficulties With Addressing Every Cancer and Treatment Type

To be an effective, professional app that meets my visions, I want every type of cancer and treatment to have a support article and visualization graphic associated. In an ideal world, I would have every edge case documented on the app so users don't feel neglected or alone in their journey. For this app design, I simplified this scenario to tackle one form of cancer.

High-fidelity Prototype

My goal of the Hi-Fi prototype is to validate if my design changes are genuine improvements, if people would use the app over other alternatives, and test the usability. I created a basic interactive prototype using Figma to test my hypothesis.

Onboarding

Main Flow

User Testing

I moderated user testing with 5 users with varying backgrounds. One was my friend, current cancer patient. The rest included people who were interested in learning more about cancer.

Here's a brief overview of the process:

• Introduce the project goal, and put users at ease.
• Describe scenario, set up context, and allow users to use the app while thinking aloud.
• Ask follow up questions and gather feedback.
• Let users fill out questionnaire. Thank them for participation.

Results & Evaluations

Measuring Success

To quantitatively measure the success of the design, I broke down the larger design goals into detailed, measurable ones, and developed a questionnaire to help me answer those questions.

Detailed Design Goals

Alleviate stress and anxiety from users educational content

Allow users to explore personalized content

Help users understand more cancer treatment plans to decrease stress and uncertainty

Instill positivity and optimism through success stories

Evaluation Questions

Q: How much did learning more about diagnosis decrease stress and anxiety levels?

Q: Does the personalized content increase your engagement?

Q: Did learning about different treatment plans help with clearing confusion or uncertainties

Q: Did you feel more optimistic reading and seeing the success stories right here in the app?

View questionnaire

Results

I was able to gather a lot of positive feedback on the prototype, each with varying backgrounds. Here’s a summary of the questionnaire.

Most importantly, none of my features had a negative effect on the 5 users tested. All users noted an improvement in their cancer support experience in one form or another.

Notable Outcomes

The most significant outcome was the increased optimism users felt after seeing success stories. This makes sense, as users are often encouraged when they see someone in a similar situation improve.

60% of users reported no change in their feelings when learning more about their diagnosis, which is understandable given the neutral nature of facts. Proactive users may have also done their own research prior. After discussing with some users, many have noted that the first thing they would do is to search up their diagnosis on Google. It wouldn’t make sense for users to go straight to downloading the app.

Feedback & Design Iterations

I made sure to write down each piece of user feedback during testing. I used FigJam to organize and group the feedback by sections in the app.

Decreasing Friction and Improving Initial Impressions

Users noted that the onboarding process felt too interrogative and more like a survey. These were the changes I implemented below to address the issues.

Progressive Disclosure

Using an UX technique called progressive disclosure, I decreased the cognitive load for users through the separation of each question.

Visual Progess Bar

I added progress dots in the bottom to indicate how far along the user was in the onboarding process. Having a progress visual will motivate users to continue to finish their onboarding and reassure them of any uncertainties.

Friendly Langauge

I added friendly language in the first screen to make the onboarding process feel less invasive, tedious, or negative. I wanted users to feel safe and supported when they first download the app.

Before

After

Adding Manual Lookup Option

Users introduced an edge case where they might not fully know the diagnosis. In this case, they want to be able to manually navigate to the diagnosis by narrowing down possible options.

Increasing Usability

Adding a manual lookup option enhances the app's usability by simplifying the process of finding a diagnosis. This feature is especially helpful for users who may not know their exact diagnosis or struggle to remember the spelling of complex medical terms.

Before

After

Adding Descriptions to the Navigation Icons

Users noted that not everyone may be familiar with icon meanings, which can increase confusion in the app.

Universal Design

Adding descriptions ensures that people of all backgrounds, including varying ages, abilities, and needs, can navigate the app with clarity and ease. Universal design is especially critical for medical apps, as it promotes accessibility and inclusivity for all users.

Before

After

Latest Prototype

Here's the latest prototype with some of my updated changes.

Future Steps

Reflections & Notes