Boston Children’s Hospital

Role

UX Research, UX/UI Design

Duration

5 months

Tools

Figma

A sponsored project by Boston Children's Hospital to improve the self-scheduling flow

Project Overview

‍This project was part of the HF770 Prototyping & Interaction Design class at Bentley University, sponsored by Boston Children's Hospital (BCH). Students were tasked with creating a user-friendly online scheduling widget for the BCH website, addressing the inefficiencies and confusion in the existing scheduling process. shopping habits to uncover any needs and pain points they have.

Project Goals

‍Develop a user-friendly scheduling widget that integrates seamlessly with the BCH website

Identify and resolve the current areas of confusion associated with the existing scheduling mechanisms

The problem

Currently it takes a lot to schedule an appointment at Boston Children's, increasing the workload for hospital staff to handle incoming calls and manually input appointment details.

The solution

An intuitive self-scheduling flow with clear directions and easy-to-follow steps to encourage users to self-schedule their own appointments.

Design Process

Discover

Research

Despite having a self-scheduling feature, only about 2% of appointments are self-scheduled.

Through reviewing the current self-scheduling system and talking to members of the Digital Experience team from Boston Children's Hospital, here are some findings that I found around issues with self-scheduling

How might we redesign the self-scheduling process at Boston Children's to create a more intuitive and simplified user experience?

Discover

Brainstorming

Addressing issue #1: Lack of directions on the homepage regarding self-scheduling

Solution: A single 'Schedule Appointment' option that directs users to the appropriate location

Addressing issue #2: Bridging the gap between "requesting" and "scheduling" as there are a lot of confusion around the two.

Solution: Two separate flows for when self-scheduling is available and when self-scheduling is not available

Define

User personas

Julia is a stay-at-home mom who is trying to schedule an appointment for her 6-year-old son, Jack

Ideate

Initial wireframes

I started my designs by developing low-fidelity wireframes, ensuring alignment with the established branding and interface of the current Boston Children's website. My primary goal was to simplify the user journey, and the redesigned flow is as follow:

Homepage

Prominent Placement: Positioned a "Schedule Appointment" button on the homepage for easy access.
‍Guided Navigation: Upon clicking, users are directed to a questionnaire to guide them to the appropriate service or specialist.

Doctor Search

‍Enhanced Search: Revamped the search page to be more intuitive, with clear filters and sorting options.

Scheduling and Requesting Appointments

Clear Action Paths: Distinguished between options to "Request an Appointment" and "Schedule an Appointment"

Design

First Iteration

After the initial wireframes, we conducted design reviews with classmates and the team at Boston Children's Hospital to gather feedback and iterate upon them.

Iterations based on feedback

Feedback

‍"Some doctors are not available several months out and it's currently an issue"
"Prompt patients to call when there is limited availability"