Complex Healthcare App Remembers the Patient
Feedback software for clinical and research use in the neurofeedback and biofeedback fields was either overly simple or overly stimulating, causing clinical patients to either quickly become bored or experience reduced treatment effects due to overstimulation. None of the existing feedback software options allowed the clinician to tailor the feedback and stimulation to the client's individual needs.
As a result, many clinicians reported difficulty with treatment compliance.
patient-specific data
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Data display elements, background objects, and environmental sounds could all be turned on or off independently, to provide appropriate levels of stimulation
Biometric feedback is presented both discrete (binary on or off) and proportional (better and worse)
This improved intuitive connection between the data and the behavior of the character.
The product we replaced
Zukor's Grind
Zukor's Grind
Zukor's Grind
Zukor's Air
Clinical system companies forgot about the users
Research
- Competitive Analysis and Market Research
- User testing of sound and visual cues
- Understanding how clinicians used the software
Prototype
I was not involved in the prototyping directly, but consulted cross-functionally with the development team
Test and iterate
- usability testing
- A/B Testing
- clinical implementation testing
- use findings to enhance design prior to development
Aligning software with needs of both clinicians and patients
Planning
we looked at all commonly available feedback software for the 4 major systems in the field. What we found was that the most useful tools were those that offered both discrete (go/no go) feedback and proportional feedback (% success) at the same time.
We also found some major pain points in the existing options:
In order to be accessible to the user, both auditory and visual cues needed to be customizable, and we needed little or no textual cues for users due to the young age of some users, and the language diversity inherent in a global product.
We user tested many short tones, or “beeps” and came to the decision to give the therapist the option to personalize and customize the settings. The tones could be both discrete (either they happened every 500ms or they didn’t) and proportional (volume based).
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Personalization and Customization
Biometric therapies are very specialized and specific to the individual being trained, but it is also very unique to the clinician. There are so many varieties of training protocols and therapeutic populations that the system we created had to allow for a lot of personalization and customization options both in the visual displays and the auditory responses.
On top of those challenges, we needed to allow the clinician to dictate the methodology, input method, and expected response and it was my responsibility to identify how these should be presented.
The impact rocked the whole industry
-Works with 5 world-class, clinical biofeedback systems
-Redefined industry standard for feedback options internationally and domestically
-1 clinic reported a 37% increase in client retention
The second iteration of the game is still the standard for the industry, worldwide.
Zukor's Grind got a glow up, and a new visual theme as a flying game called "Zukor's Air", which appeals to military, veterans, and kids alike.
During the development of the game, I had a battle with cancer. I was honored by the addition of my mascot, a flying glass pig, in this second edition.