Self-care App

Project Definition

The aim of this project is to design an interactive patient-centered tool for cancer survivors with chronic pain to assess and monitor pain from multiple aspects. This tool would build patients’ confidence in their ability of pain self-management, and also overcome the communication gaps between patients and their care-takers using design thinking and co-design methods. Chronic pain is one of the most common struggles of cancer survivors till the end of their lives. Research shows that in addition to the physical pain, psycho-social and behavioral factors play a significant role in the experience, maintenance, and exacerbation of pain. This interactive tool will allow patients use effective visual images and graphs to record their pain experience from multiple dimensions: physical, psychological, and external factors. The result of inputs will show patterns and correlations between multiple aspects, which will significantly improve the patient-caregiver communication as well as the overall quality of pain management.

Design Process

Problem area and study focus

Having a holistic view of a problem can broaden the perspective and provide the opportunity to see the hidden layers and connections. This clear vision of the problem area can enhance the design thinking process. Also, this map shows the most important areas that should be covered during the design process. This broad view necessarily does not look for all answers in one app, but an indication of awareness about possible networks and connections. This can also be considered as a brainstorming map for possible pathways of the future problem-solving.

Persona

Personas were used to build empathy and understand the possible needs of different users. The goal was to have a look on users who are friendly with new technologies and on the other hand users that are not necessarily comfortable with technology. Also, the overall needs of a breast cancer survivor were studied to find a better motivational path for engaging them in self-care process.

Journey Map

Proper Icon

Designing proper pain icon was one of the main struggles of this project, since this icon had to follow universal design principles and also easily understood by the users.

Sketches and brainstorming about various functions and sections of the self-care app. what are the main concepts that should be addressed and what are the hidden layers that should not be forgotten.

Finding the connections between different sections of the app.

Design for phone and Ipad

Designing the visuals

Developing the concepts and working on the most user-friendly interfaces, were some of the important challenges of this project. AR body rotation simulation for pain tracking

Adding visuals to the app

The character was designed in order to be used in the introduction page.