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POTS pal

Imagining a POTS specific symptom tracker

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Project Type

Case study

The Team

Just me!

My Role

User Research

UX/UI Design

Wireframing

Brand Design

Clinical Advisor

Tools

Figma

FigJam

Miro

Overview

Understanding POTS and the importance of symptom tracking.

Background: understanding POTS
 

Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) is a condition where an abnormal increase in heart rate after sitting up or standing leads to symptoms like:

  • Dizziness

  • Fatigue

  • Palpitations

  • Fainting

 

Impact

POTS significantly disrupts daily life, affecting work, social interactions, and overall quality of life.
 

Prevalence:

  • 50,000 Canadians suffer from POTS.

  • Cases spiked post-pandemic, predominantly affecting young women.

  • Diagnosis is challenging, possibly under-reported.

 



The importance of symptom tracking

 

Why track symptoms?

The fluctuating nature of POTS makes tracking crucial for:

  • Identifying triggers and patterns

  • Facilitating accurate diagnosis 

  • Curating better treatment plans

 

Patient impact:​

Detailed symptom reports enable healthcare providers to make informed medical decisions, improving patient outcomes.

​

Personal insight:​

As a pharmacist in a POTS clinic, I witnessed the daily struggles of patients. This experience underscored the need for an app like POTS Pal to help users monitor and manage their symptoms effectively.

​

The Problem​

​

Individuals with POTS struggle to effectively manage their symptoms due to the fluctuating nature of the condition. They face difficulties in tracking symptoms, identifying triggers, and communicating their experiences with healthcare providers.

How might we enable individuals with POTS to easily track and monitor their symptoms and lifestyle choices, to better understand and manage their condition more effectively?

The Solution​

​​

My goal is to help individuals with POTS manage their symptoms through POTS Pal, a user-friendly app that offers personalized symptom tracking, insights, and the ability to share the data with your healthcare provider. This tool aids users and healthcare providers in understanding and managing the condition more effectively.

Background

Understanding the problem: how are symptoms being tracked?

Challenge:
Direct user research wasn’t possible due to the uncommon nature of POTS and my decision not to burden patients in the hospital.

​

Alternative Research:
I gathered insights through:

  • Online Forums: Exploring discussions on POTS.

  • Subreddit for POTS: Understanding people's experiences with current symptom tracking options, including their likes, dislikes, and identifying gaps that need to be addressed.

 

Key Findings:

  • Most POTS patients use generic health diary or journal apps.

  • While these apps offer trend features, they lack:

    • Direct report sharing with doctors.

    • Personalized tips based on data.

​

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Competitive analysis

I took some time to look into these health diary apps that are currently on the market.

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All the apps that I analyzed had the trends feature, but none of them allowed you to share the reports with your doctor directly through the app or receive personalized tips.

My main finding was that there is a need for a POTS specific symptom tracker that allows you to view the trends and using that data to provide personalized tips for symptom management while also making it easy to share this information with your healthcare provider directly.

Findings & Analysis

Overall, there is a need for a POTS specific symptom tracker.

Persona

I summarized the most common motivations, goals, and frustrations that I researched by reading POTS forums and community discussions, into a single persona.

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Feature roadmap

From the three major frustrations that were expressed, I outlined the main features that this app could have.

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Ideation & Design

Designing a solution that is easy-to-use.

Site map

After understanding what individuals with POTS currently use and the gaps that exist in the apps currently on the market, I made a list of the features needed to address these needs. I started piecing together the information architecture.

My primary goal was to design an app that is intuitive and user-friendly, ensuring users can easily log a new entry, visually view how their symptoms are trending, share the report, and view personalized tips based on their data without any hassle.

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Site map

After finalizing the key features and the content organization, I began thinking about the key user flows to complete tasks - create an account, add a new entry, view trends and sharing them with their healthcare provider.

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Low-fidelity explorations

Once I was happy with the structure and user flows, I began exploring how a symptom tracker could look.

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Mid-fidelity wireframes

After researching competitors and exploring layouts, I selected my favourites and created a cleaner set of screens. These are a few of the key screens:

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Homepage

Users will see the current month at a glance as soon as they open the app.

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Trends

Users will see the trends based on the selected time frame. When a trend is selected, it will go into more detail regarding the changes.

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New entry
Users can add a new entry from any point in the app. It will take them to fill out a customizable form.

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Personalized tips

A space where users can learn more about the condition and how they fluctuating symptoms can be better managed based on their data.

Branding

Designing a brand that is a companion in health.

I wanted to design a comforting and supportive brand using friendly and approachable design elements that instill a sense of companionship and reliability for users managing their POTS symptoms. 

I designed the emojis used to make it seem more friendly that appeals to the user.

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High-Fidelity Prototype

Creating a high-fidelity prototype.

Using all the information I gathered in user research and the explorations from the low and mid-fidelity prototypes, I went ahead and designed a high-fidelity prototype.

Create an account and add a healthcare provider

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Homepage: your month at a glance and select dates to be viewed.

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New entry

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Trends

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Personalized tips based on data

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Conclusion

Next steps and lessons learned.

Moving forward, my next step is to conduct user testing with POTS Pal. This will help me gather valuable feedback and identify any areas for improvement. Throughout this project, I learned the importance of understanding user needs by other means, such as online forums, and creating tailored solutions. I'm excited to refine POTS Pal based on real user experiences to ensure it truly meets the needs of those with POTS.

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