nevro pathfinder
THE CHALLENGE
Nevro's cutting edge product, the HF10 Implanted Pulse Generator (IPG) is a device that uses spinal cord stimulation to relieve pain in chronic back pain patients. The IPG device was implanted in over 15000 patients and was receiving great feedback from the patients in the span of it being used. Nevro needed a system for these patients to be able to update their daily pain feedback scores on a scale of 1-10 for research purposes to validate the effectiveness of the product.
Our team was in charge of creating a tablet app that would ensure ease of use for the patients using the IPG device and allow them to record pain feedback scores.
They also mentioned that they wanted us to work on a mobile app for both IOS and Android for users to be able to control the electrical current being produced by the IPG device as well as allow the users to set "favorites" settings for ease of access to settings for daily activities such as sleeping, working or doing physical activities.
My Role
I led the design team of the Nevro Pathfinder App across iOS and Android mobile devices as well as tablet app, since the outset of the project in March 2017
Up until 2018, I led the efforts to evolve the user experience and address user pain-points, tailoring the app for our targeted demographic.
Customer Insights and ideation
I partnered with three engineers, one project manager and one offshore designer in India to uncover insights and translate concepts into features that address user behaviors and motivation
Experience Strategy & Vision
I created frameworks and prototypes to share the vision, design principles and content strategy. This helped to evangelize ideas, gain alignment and drive decision making for the project
Planning & Scope Definition
I defined the product with my project manager and offshore designer. We gathered user research from patient data to pinpoint our target demographic which came out to be senior citizens, so we knew we would have be designing a simpler app with a minimalist feel. We prioritized stakeholder goals and negotiated features for launch
Design Execution & Validation
I designed based off a previous iteration given to me and made improvements to it, making sure to maintain some of the key features that product owners wanted to continue implementing in further iterations. I executed user journeys, personas, wireframes, prototypes and design specs.
Previous iteration
Here is an sample screen of the previous iteration of the app designs I was given to improve.
The goal was to improve the simplicity and the overall feel, keeping it up to date with modern design trends.
Leadership
I designed multiple iterations after continuous consultation and feedback from my team and presented the products' design as well as sprint updates to Nevro executives to gain by-in throughout the project lifecyle
The Discovery
Customer Insights
We conducted patient and market research to drive our planning phase. These are the key insights that defined the launch version of the product.
We found that the spectrum for patients with the IPG device implanted varied from contact sports athletes, car accident victims and old age. The largest percentage of these patients were between the ages of 55 and 70 years old.
User Personas
Here is a sample user persona I created based on the research done on the patient data and feedback we received
The Framework
HOW WE GOT THERE
The biggest challenge I faced throughout this project was balancing being able to move forward with designs, whist collaborating with the wider team. Since our offshore designer was located in India, different time zones became an obstacle, especially on time sensitive portions of the project.
We each had to adjust our work hours, often working off hours, so we could be most effective and available to coordinate with each other on Slack.
Managing feedback was also challenging because it felt like there was a tug-of-war in terms of varying viewpoints amongst the team on certain features and design decisions. I took everyone on the team's opinions and suggestions into consideration before deciding to implement a certain feature, ultimately using the data and research to validate which decision we ultimately went with, making sure to explain why we did what we did to the team.
Mockups & Prototypes
For each feature phase, I went through cycles of requirements, consensus, approvals, detailed spec and handoffs.
My process involved sketching and white-boarding concepts and flows with my project manager and then translating them into quick wireframes and then directly into hi-fidelity designs on sketch. Since I was working with a previous design pattern, It was relatively easy to move right into the mockups.
My next step involved taking the screens/artboards and piecing them together with InVision and Proto.io. The prototype allowed me to display the screen transitioning and a slider bar for inputting the feedback score. This required Proto.io for ease of incorporating simple javascript to create a slider that allowed the number to change with the movement of the slider for the pain feedback score.
Prototyping was definitely the most effective way to gain meaningful feedback from the team.
