Course: SI 682 (Interface and Interaction Design)
This course "provides an introduction to user-interface design from a design principles perspective. It covers such topics as accessibility, design ethics, psychological principles, interaction principles, requirements analysis, project management, I/O devices, standards and style guides, and visual design principles.
This is a projects-based course. All projects are scoped to allow students to develop and apply a pragmatic, applied view of design, with frequent practical design exercises".
Project site: https://sites.google.com/site/si682clinical/
The Client:
Our client is the Michigan Institute of Clinical and Health Research, specifically their online clinical trial registry, UMClinicalStudies.org. This website displays information about studies taking place at the University of Michigan that are in need of participants and provides a system for signing up as a volunteer.
The Problem:
Many clinical trials that are held at the University of Michigan are not completed due to lack of participation. As a large research institution, UM would benefit from greater trial participation. While UMClinicalStudies.org provides the means for people to find studies that match their conditions and preferences, MICHR believes they can improve the service, increase interest in clinical trials, and reach a wider audience.
Our Goals:
We aim to create an interface that will:
- increase clinical trial awareness and participation at the University of Michigan,
- connect with students,
- be simple and convenient,
- engage users,
- and facilitate trust in research.
Our Concerns:
- Awareness: Some people are not quite sure what clinical trials are. Others are familiar with them but have never participated. Still more people may be interested in clinical research but never have heard about MICHR's website, UMClinicalStudies.org. But as Professor McQuaid pointed out, most people in the University community encounter advertisement for so many different organizations and events on a daily basis that they may not take notice of any of it. How can we promote the interface that we will create for them?
- Motivation: As with anything that requires volunteers, motivation is a big issue for this project. Although many studies offer incentives, not all of them do, and not everyone can be motivated by cash, gift cards, or free teeth cleanings. What can the application do to motivate users to actually participate?
- Loss of interest: Similarly, how can we keep people engaged? Our client informed us that they have found a lot of people register as volunteers and then completely forget about it or never follow through with a study.
- Ease of use: After going through the registration process on UMClinicalStudies.org and browsing some studies, we wonder how the system could be adapted to a mobile application. How can we streamline and simplify what the website offers, while also incorporating something new that keeps users interested.
Our Ideas:
To help MICHR improve recruitment for clinical trials we plan to design a mobile application that will make it easy for students and other members of the community to access information about trials. The mobile application would communicate information to potential participants, provide a map of clinical trials, send alerts about new trials, and connect participants with researchers.
In order to truly engage users and create an interest in the project, though, we think we need to go beyond the basic requirements of the system and find ways to make volunteering fun, interesting, and social. We are going to consider how to use things like points or ranking systems, and sharing to create an application that people will want to use.
What I did:
As a team member, I participated in interviews, contextual inquiry, affinity diagramming, writing, presenting, Lo-Fi and Hi-Fi prototyping. I also contributed to 90% of the coding of our app.
Steps & Progress:
- The team
- Contextual Inquiry
- Personas & Scenarios
- Lo-Fi Prototype
- Hi-Fi Prototype
- User testing & Summary
Screenshots:
