3 months
At-A-Glance
Cysta was a semester-long class project aimed at helping individuals with PCOS gain a greater understanding of their condition through tracking symptoms, documenting lab reports, and data visualization over time.
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The Problem
Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is a chronic condition characterized by hormonal imbalances and cysts around the ovaries. PCOS affects 1 in 10 individuals worldwide and has no cure, resulting in long-term treatment and lifestyle changes (John Hopkins, 2022).
Overview of Solution
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Process
Key Guiding Research Questions:
- What factors increase adherence to PCOS management strategies?
- What overarching struggles do individuals with PCOS have in adhering to their management strategies?
- How do individuals learn about their management strategies/regimes?
- How do individuals track/monitor how their body responds to certain lifestyle changes?
Interviews
We conducted 7 interviews with women of different ages and stages of PCOS. Of our participants, 3 of the 7 had previously utilized mHealth technology to help manage their condition.
Key Finding #1
PCOS is a highly individualized condition that affects each person differently. This makes it difficult for individuals to find a regime that works best for their body.
“…PCOS treatment is personalized, which is why you find a lot of conflicting answers and information out there. It gets really overwhelming, and if you keep reading everything, you’ll go crazy.”
Key Finding #2
Individuals typically adhere to management strategies through trial and error in order to see how their body responds, rather than through online resources.
“The amount of suggestions online is overwhelming, and I never know of they’ll apply to me. I like to try out a new diet for a while and see if I notice any changes.”
“I’ll usually start with my doctor’s recommendations and see how my body responds”
Key Finding #3
6 of 7 participants noted the difficulty in identifying how certain lifestyle factors may be impacting their symptoms. The relationship between these lifestyle changes and PCOS symptoms is not always straightforward or immediately apparent.
"I've been keeping a journal to track my diet changes and my symptoms, but it's really hard to see patterns. Sometimes I think I'm doing everything right, but my symptoms are still flaring up. Other times, I'm not as consistent with my self-care, but my symptoms seem to be under control. It's like a guessing game."
What strategies could be effective for helping people with PCOS understand the connections between modifications to their daily habits and the symptoms they experience from the condition?
Competitive Analysis
6 competitors were chosen from direct and indirect markets. Although there are multiple competitors on the market, we found that these applications lack symptom customization and data visualization. From these findings, we began brainstorming ways to incorporate user personalization in order to customize the application to fit their needs.
Personas
Our primary persona focuses more on the daily struggles involved with PCOS, while the secondary persona focuses on long-term effects of the disease, such as infertility.
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Storyboarding
Not only does storyboarding help communicate design solutions to stakeholders, the process helps us expose the mental models we have about how a product may be implemented. We created storyboards of how the product could assist users utilizing just-in-time interventions.
The Design
Paper Prototyping:
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Wireframing & Interaction Flows:
Originally, we had considered functionalities such as providing evidence-based health articles/information on PCOS and treatment strategies, but through communication with users we found that this function was redundant. Users stated that they have multiple existing avenues for finding health information, and that they were comfortable in their existing strategies of doing so. After deciding on which design solutions we wanted to focus on, we began refining our designs via wireframing our screens and generating user flows.
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Initial Usability Testing:
We conducted 5 usability tests of our low-fidelity prototype.
Our original iteration of Cysta included the ability to connect with and contact a user’s gynecologist in order to schedule appointments or ask questions. Upon user testing, multiple users noted that, while they liked the concept of connecting with their doctor via the application, they wouldn’t actually use a contact doctor functionality within the application.
“I’d rather have an all-in-one place to keep all of my blood test results. It’s difficult keeping track of them all and I end up losing old reports.”-User Test Participant 3
“I like seeing my tracked data over time, but I think it’d be more useful seeing how the different data I logged interacts over time; like, being able to see if there’s a change in a symptom after changing my diet for some time.”-User Test Participant 5
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Follow Up Considerations
Users often back-log data, making it difficult to accurately track data over time
How can our design facilitate more regular data input and prevent prolonged backlogging?
1/4 of mHealth applications are only used once after initial download
What factors can be changed to facilitate continuous use of the application?
Ways to ensure privacy and health data protection
Because this application involves health data including reproductive health information (menstrual tracking), it’s important to make sure users feel safe logging this information.
Ensuring that the application is facilitating a healthy relationship with food
Because the application includes functionalities relating to diet changes, it’s important to facilitate a positive relationship with food and not discourage users.