Waitless Medical is a small startup, not yet launched, that created software to fill missed appointments at doctors offices. I worked directly with the founder in a team of 2 UX interns for a 40 hour engagement. The software is made up of two portals: a patient portal, where the patient can create wishlists for appointments, and doctor’s portal, where the doctor can post appointments. My task on this project was to streamline the doctor’s portal.
A Comprehensive UI audit was performed investigating the task of the Doctor posting the Appointment. The following issues were identified.
The doctor’s task was found to be complicated and confusing. The user was directed to multiple locations to accomplish the same task.
The doctor had to input the same information in three different locations, on different screens.
The interface was overwhelming and complicated. There menu items that led to unused pages, or pages with redundant information.
For the rough iteration, the focus of the doctor’s portal is the post appointment. This iteration is focused on keeping the process simple, keeping the process to one page. The search function drops down the appointments that are available for the time slot and the user can either select a patient or post the appointment.
First wireframe iteration using a template. The design is kept clean and simple, with the focus directly on the main task the doctor’s side is meant to perform.
The task becomes one fluid flow, entering the time once, and the actions, search, post, and select patient became one.
The user only needs to input the time once, with the tasks automated based off of one entry.
The focus of the doctor’s end becomes the one task, merely posting the appointment.
The first page upon logging in allows the doctor to handle the task right away. The appointment times filled and pending are shown up front, and the form to submit the new appointment time is clear and the main focus. The task is made to be clear and easy, so the doctors don’t have to think twice about the process.
The Doctor or nurse has one automated flow here. They enter their appointed time, and a search populates with the times that the patients have requested. If the doctor has a preference for which patients fill the appointment, they have the option with the candidacy tab below. Patients can be excluded from or selected for the offer. If the doctor has no preference for who fills the appointment, they can bypass the populated search and merely select post. This allows the doctor one fluid flow, simplifying their task, and allowing this process to be one that takes almost no time.
When the doctor or nurse with their busy schedules logs in, the page options are simple and straightforward. There are three menu options here, offering the user the post appointment option, practice information, and reports generated. The practice information is clean and simple, with the ability to edit the doctors or hours available.
The designs were given to Waitless Medical to be used in future iterations. The solutions here are based on the assumption that a separate interface is needed for appointment refilling. During this research it became clear that a more optimized solution could be achieved by a tight integration with existing appointment software. This is a direction that was recommended to the client for future exploration.