Noureddine Azhar
Naarm (Melbourne)
Product, Digital & Brand design
In the UK, 1 in 2 people are on long term repeat prescriptions and 1 in 3 often forget to order their prescriptions. This is where our NHS app comes in.
The web app had recently had work done before my arrival so the focus was shifted to the NHS app first, which had not been worked on since it was made. So it was riddled with a variety of UX issues as well as not being able to handle the influx of new NHS patients.
The goal of this project was to create a better experience for the NHS product, as well as creating a patient area that could cater to all areas of the business and not just for the NHS.
However, we decided that the MVP would focus on the main flows of the NHS product; sign up, add medication and request medication.
I started by taking a look at the existing NHS repeat prescription apps. Due to NHS regulations and the specific nature of these apps I thought it would be a good idea to map out common patterns throughout.
Just like us, not a lot of our competitors did not have IM1 integration. This was an integration that allowed us to connect directly with the patient's GP surgery and reduce the amount of information the patient had to give us. It also allowed the patient to request their repeat from their GP without having to search and add their medication.
Our IM1 integration was still in it's very early stages so I would need to find a way to reduce the amount of information the patient had to give us up front. Not many of our competitors were able to do this so I thought this would give us a bit of a leg up when it comes to signing up.
The good thing about starting with the app was that we always wanted to take the mobile first approach to designing the web app as over 70% of our patients used a mobile to access the web app. This meant that apart from a few mobile only features and design specifics, we could use the majority of the components designed for mobile, for the web app.
I created a basic wireframes and prototype for the core flows so that I could test my concept of reducing the key pieces of information.
After several usability tests and user interviews it was clear that the concept was understood and that while the amount of information provided by the patient was the same, placing it in different areas of the main flows made it seem quicker and less of a commitment from a patient upfront.
Now that the concepts were finalised it was time to start on the final designs of the app. I wanted to keep the design as clean and minimal as possible.
I wanted to ensure that the app didn't appear to be designed for a specific audience. Our product had such a broad target audience of anyone who has repeat prescriptions, so the design had to cater to everyone.
Now for the sad part. After the app was designed and a lot of progress had been made on the front end, issues on the back end meant that development had to stop. Due to a lot of different circumstances we couldn't proceed with the development of the app because the old backend system was unable to handle many of the new requirements of the new system.
We reached a point in the front end where there was nothing we could do until the new and updated back end system was finished. I shifted focus to start working on projects that did not rely on any engineers as their efforts were now focused entirely on the back-end system.