ROLE
Product Designer
TIME
January - March 2021
TEAM
Mika Isayama, Rachel Fong, Alexis Lowber in CS147: Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction
WHAT I DID
User research, Visual design,
High Fidelity Prototyping
TOOLS USED
Figma
Requesting healthcare accommodations and ensuring that special needs are met – as required by law – is a frustrating process for Deaf patients.
Beyond this legal right, our team was committed to the idea that everyone deserves an accessible & welcoming hospital experience.
How we help Deaf patients establish their communication preferences and secure their legal right to an interpreter before a doctor’s appointment?
Our team created Booked, an an app that leverages peer-endorsed recommendations and personal preferences to find and book interpreters.
I defined Booked's design system and created high-fidelity prototypes.
Our general question was “What language barriers exist in healthcare?”. After doing some informational interviews talking to people with verbal language barriers and different abilities, sign language interpretation stood out to us as a particularly lacking space in terms of effective solutions. We focused on the perspectives of 2 of our interviewees: Tim and Cathy.
Native ASL signer
Professor at Brown
Tim shared that as someone deeply involved in the Deaf community, many folks are not even aware of their right to an interpreter since it's something they have to pursue, instead of them being provided by the hospital
Native ASL signer
Professor at Stanford
Cathy shared experiences of being denied interpretation services by hospitals, or dealing with unprofessional interpreters that were either late or who she didn’t feel like properly represented her needs.
Our initial top 2 solution ideas were
We thought that these solutions would take the burden of advocacy off of Deaf patients.
After experience prototyping to test assumptions however, we found that we had unknowingly designed solutions that took agency away from users. During user interviews for these ideas, it was clear that both advocates and medical staff people felt uncomfortable advocating for someone else or booking accommodations without direct communication from the patient themselves,
With these learnings, we sought to put the power in patients’ own hands to book certified interpreters according to their preferences.
Once we finalized a product direction, I turned our prototypes into high-fidelity designs by creating a design system that was focused on simplicity.
I established visual hierarchy and used Gestalt principles to group important information together.
Upcoming appointments, past interpreters, and all interpreters can be accessed from the home screen.
Users can browse interpreters that are recommended by their friends. When filters are applied, they are displayed above the sorted list.
Choosing an interpreter should be a decision that patients make with all the information they need to feel comfortable. Booked provides that all here.
The bio page includes gender identity, pronouns, work location, a personalized bio, and certification information.
The experience page includes the number of appointments and types of clients served.
The reviews page includes which friends recommended this interpreter and all reviews received.
Reviews emphasize non-text input and provide a space to report inappropriate behavior.
Given rapid timelines, it was difficult to make sure a sign language interpreter was available and scheduled for every interview.
This extended to the actual interviews– while user testing, traditional methods of having users “think out loud” was less efficient because users had to pause their interaction with our prototypes to sign their comments and have it interpreted for us.
Additionally, alt text is not possible on Figma, so we didn’t have a way to test with users who had more than one disability.