Exploring User-Centered Solutions for Dr. Reddy’s Dermatology Business

Role: Project & process direction

Team: Product designer, graphic designer and me

Duration: 5 weeks

Locations: Hyderabad (India) & Chicago (Illinois)

CONTEXT

Six shortlisted opportunities areas for design needed to be validated and tested in the area of chronic skin disease management. The goal was to converge on a solution that could be developed further from within these six. The team needed to deepen their understanding of these six directions and build compelling value propositions for them that could be validated with the users.

CHALLENGE

The six opportunities were varied in nature. They were a mix of product and service design ideas. The prototype led research in this phase had to yield insights that would help converge further. The prototypes needed to be of a higher fidelity, as deeper discussions were to be had on the ‘how’ aspect of need fulfillment. The challenge was to 1. Continue ideation based on research insights and 2. Test the varied prototypes (The research design had to account for gathering responses to a wide range of design approaches and make sure that the 6 prototypes were also rated with respect to each other.) 3. Converge on a solution based on user research and business strategy.

PROCESS

We started this phase with the findings of round 1 of low fidelity prototype research. The key steps for this phase were:

Ideation

The feedback from round 1 was synthesized to find pointers on what kind of solutions the users are actually looking for. They were further designed with more thought on how the patients wanted unmet needs to be addressed. Competition review also helped in shaping formats for the solutions, like websites, kit services or smartphone apps.

Brainstorming Session: We held an internal workshop to include co-workers from other teams to contribute to the pool of ideas and more importantly to refine the design thought. We created cards to share the key insights and needs with them along with basic information about the 4 chronic skin conditions.

Creating Prototypes and Choosing Communication Formats

We had to find clever ways to show more detail, just enough to communicate the what and the how. The 6 prototypes were very different in their nature, some were close to current technological realities to which the respondents could base their responses on. Some were very revolutionary and were bound to evoke extreme reactions. We had the responses from round 1 for reference and hence we chose the prototyping method by paying close attention to the nature of the concept.

Examples:

For a breakthrough technological product we used a video as a format to show the use case. We added information in the video to show the details and give explanations. We created a form-only model and used it in the video to show it as a functional product.

We created interactive prototypes for two concepts: smartphone app and a website using Flinto. This would allow the users to actually get a sense of the user experience, the UX copy as well as the overall purpose of the app. 

Research Methods, Research Design and Plan

User Research with interactive prototypes

We chose to do One on one, in depth interviews with patients and prescribers based on the learning from the previous phase (read learnings and takeaways of case study 1). We removed pharmacists from the cohort given the nature of the ideas, many of which did not relate to the drug fulfillment piece of the experience journey. We chose to hold 8 interview sessions (2 for each of the 4 chronic skin conditions) in Chicago.

The interview was designed to get isolated responses to each idea as standalone and ‘relative responses’ to learn about which of these is most desirable to the user and why

 The interviews were structured in the following manner:

• Top of mind evaluation of the idea

• Explanation followed by detail reaction

• Delighting vs. Non delighting elements

• Suggested changes to the basic design

The most valuable bit of the interviews was the participatory design element wherein we asked the participants to share how the concept behind the prototype could be improved

Once all 6 concepts were shown, the respondents were asked to rank all of the six. They were asked to share the reasons behind their number one choice.

Google Ad campaign + Dummy websites for top 3

The synthesis and analysis of the prototype research helped us to eliminate 3 it of the 6 concepts. We wanted to do some more validation work before presenting our recommendations to the business team. Doing full-fledged user research for the remaining 3 would not have proved useful as there wasn’t enough time or budget factored in to iterate the design and do another round of recruited research. 

To solve for this we came up with the idea of creating dummy landing pages or ‘Coming Soon’ websites for the top three ideas.  We then ran a Google ad campaign by partnering with a digital marketing agency. I created the adcopy to capture the important aspects of the 3 solutions. The goal was to check for traction and user interest in these ideas. We also provided a ‘keep me posted’ button to account for the interest through sign ups. 

The campaign cost much less than commissioned user research and gave us enough data to move ahead. The data supported us and the business team in choosing the concept for further development in the next phase. 

Synthesis and Analysis

The feedback from the interview sessions were analyzed deeply by looking at every facet of the prototype design. We reviewed the user speak to look for - things that work, things that don’t and what’s missing. We tagged the insights for another round of synthesis and analysis to arrive at the final insights from this phase.

OUTCOMES

Framework to understand user needs of patients of chronic skin conditions:

POV presentation with recommendations for future development

A presentation was created to share the iterative design and prototyping journey. It was a solution design deep dive and was intended to discuss the way forward on this project.

This presentation also included a framework for future product development in dermatology. It was created after analyzing all the past work in this project and by answering the questions: What do patients of chronic skin conditions really needed.

• More refined articulations of user needs

• Increased understanding of user behavior

• 3 clear value props that were used a for selection discussion with stakeholders

IMPACT ON THE BUSINESS

The POV presentation presented powerful strategic opportunities for the business team to choose from. The data from the Goggle ad campaign and dummy websites gave clear indications of user traction that the team found beneficial.

A discussion on the team’s business priorities resulted in the agreement of one disease area and one product to be developed further.

LEARNINGS & TAKEAWAYS 

Selecting a prototyping method

The method of prototyping needed to fit the type and nature of the idea. This posed a challenge since all of them were quite varied and needed to be communicated with the same amount of detail and thought. Some ideas had a product form while some were digital. I was able to use my design education in determining the method though there was always a doubt if the selection was right. We ran mock interview sessions with coworkers from another team to check if the detail and resolution were appropriate. 

Creating a Framework

The amount of insights, needs and opportunities and information on user behavior was quite vast given two rounds of research. It was challenging to package and summarize all of it in a framework that could be used to better understand the area of designing for dermatology. I took a step back and asked – What do those living with chronic skin conditions really need? All of the needs could effectively be clustered into two main buckets. I then created a narrative for the POV presentation based in these two core need areas.