Types of Arthritis
Osteoarthritis:
The wear and tear of cartilage in the joints from age, injury, or obesity. The joints then become enflamed causing movement to be painful. Most common with areas that see the most use like hands knees and feet.
Rheumatoid Arthritis:
An auto-immune disease that causes the immune system to attack the cartiladge in the joints. Causes swelling and bumps around the joins called Rheumatoid Nodules.
Competition Research
RA Monitor
Positives:
-Records symptoms
-tracks medications and effectiveness
-appointment reminders
Negatives:
-Sliders are hard for users with arthritis in hands to use
-navigation elements around screen extremities are hard to navigate with one hand for arthritic people
Arthritis ID
Positives:
-simple 9 question diagnosis
-intuitive bodypart symptom
-informative
Negatives:
-badly aged
-no exercises or treatment
-navigation elements around corner of screen
RAise
Positives:
-Clean interface
-treatments and exercises
-multiple ways to track
Negatives:
-text may be small for elderly
-sliders may aggravate joints
-interface around screen extremities
Essential R&D
Who:
-Arthritis osteo or rheumatoid
-elderly
What:
-an app for arthritis
Why:
-alleviating symptoms or stress or technical difficulties
Where:
-In the palm of their hand
How:
-Tracking pain and medication and encouraging a healthy lifestyle
Needs:
-Tracking pain and medication
Friction Points:
-lack of incentives
-too many drag elements
-navigation elements around edges of screen far from areas easy to access with joint pain
Audits:
-Arthritis osteo or rheumatoid
-elderly
Naming
RA minders
Get a Rheum
Ritis
Joint Effort
Kartlidge
Pain Graph
Joint Alert
Daily Cart
Tend to It
Deciding on a name for my Rheumatoid Arthritis app was challenging. Rheumatoid Arthritis is a ver specific name that sounds extremely technical. I tried to use abbreviations like RA for some of my name ideas. Other things I tried were references to cartiledge and tendons. The name Joint Effort came to me as referencing the joints that arthritis targets while representing how the app helps the health care provider and their patient overcome arthritis together.
Scenario Mapping
To help brainstorm the experience that my users would encounter through using my app, I paired up with a classmate who was also doing an app on arthritis. The first scenario map we created was aimed more towards diagnosing and informing patients on arthritis. We went back and rewrote the scenarios to reflect a scenario where we got rid of the quizzing and informing in lieu of introducing users to the app and creating a system to remind patients to take medication and share their data with health care providers or family.
User Journey
After re-evaluating my initial user journey sketch I built out a vector version and went deeper in my though process. I added more of the healthcare professionals thought process and specific actions.
Content Map
I went more in depth than my sketch iteration and color coded pathways for certain actions along with the inclusion of queries to inform the users experience.
Brandmark Process
Creating the brand mark, my first iteration was to emulate a joint to represent the condition of arthritis itself, the name, and the concept of two people working jointly. After some feedback, I realized it may be too literal. I instead went for two hands interlocking to represent the support that the healthcare provider is giving to the patient. I did not feel that was working as well either, so I moved on to a more simplified version based on two hands interlocked made to represent a joint.