I worked in a team with two other designers to create an app concept to answer the question: “How might we make tracking prescriptions easier?”
To find ways to make an app help the process of keeping track of prescriptions, we first interviewed and sent surveys to people who are caretakers or are reliant on medicine to take feedback from both perspectives of someone taking medicine. Our insights found that tracking functionalities are mostly helpful towards caretakers who are busy managing other daily tasks whilst taking care of usually an older dependent, so we planned our app structure around that.
We named this app “Dosette,” after dosette boxes, which are commonly used to physically keep track of medicine. We aim to design this app to be as useful, simple, and intuitive as an actual dosette box to caretakers and patients alike.
I was responsible for project management. I consistently scheduled check-ins, meeting times and milestones to keep the team on top of deadlines. I approached this project with a “do-it-yourself” schedule, where I assigned each of us tasks to complete by the next milestone. We would then gather our designs and discuss how we can harmonize it together to maintain a smooth image while streamlining the process.
I primarily focused on designing the calendar user interface. Inspired by the app’s namesake, I modeled the weekly view after a dosette box. This is not only to create a memorable feature, but also as a more obvious visual indicator of days of the week, especially to those familiar with dosette boxes.
A hurdle we needed to conquer was that the designing phase of the project was in the middle of a very work-intensive time for all three designers in the team, so it was difficult to find time to work together. We worked together to ensure that we continued to give consistent feedback and cross-referencing between designs, and supporting others that are busy, so the process can still continue offline.
Reflection
Overall, I think this project was a difficult one, since my group was initially not very familiar with medical topics such as this, and that our schedules often did not align to have consistent meeting times. This experience taught me it is possible to persevere through these kinds of hurdles through consistent communication and feedback cycles to ensure the team is still on track, while everyone still continues working at the best schedules.
