Overview

Marvin, a startup under Harvard Innovation Labs, was founded to reimagine the one-size-fits-all approach to telemental health care. After (5) 1:1 interviews with target customers, a competitive review, and a literature review I was able to identify best practices and peer-reviewed research on guidance for the subject area.

In collaboration with a PM, I redesigned the complete patient journey to drive engagement and improve patient experiences.

Problem

The existing process to schedule was time consuming and cumbersome - with patients emailing back and forth with Marvin staff to coordinate their sessions. Once scheduled, joining and completing sessions was described as "uncomfortable," "confusing," and "stressful."

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Solution

Marvin's redesign offers more intuitive interactions and reduces time to perform core tasks.

Part 1: literature review

I dedicated around a week to this part. Not a whole lot of time, but I worked efficiently and diligently, reading peer-reviewed literature, articles from organizations such as The American Psychiatric Association, and other online sources like UX Collective. What I wanted to learn:

• What are the best practices for design in the telemental health space?
• What are the known gaps?
• What are the current design patterns for 1:1 video calls with a client and therapist?
• What do users want and need?

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Part 2: competitor review

I worked with the PM to define a short list of competitors; both direct (TalkSpace, Teladoc, Betterhelp, and Zoom) and indirect (Psychology Today and Alcoholics Anonymous). I scoped my review to the following criteria:

• What are common, thereby “expected” video features? What stands out?
• What are their strengths and weaknesses (referencing learnings from my earlier literature review and knowledge of design best practices)

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Part 3: talking to (patient) users

I created a quick research plan to define recruitment, scope and interview questions. In the end I was able to meet with 5 people for semi-structured interviews, where I learned:

• People want to feel prepared for appointments.
• Abruptly joining a video call was stressful, especially if they didn't know what to expect / anything about their therapist in advance.
• People have busy lives, so the booking process needs to be efficient. Takes them too much time to find and book a slot that fits with their schedule? Flow abandoned. 
• People are often on the go and love the flexibility this type of care allows.
• To ensure they wouldn't forget about the appointment, some manually set up appointment reminders in their calendar. 
• Some went a step further and scheduled a "transition period" to help move from "work brain" to "getting help." When probing, I learned folks used a variety of activities that helped them in this "transition."

A simple and efficient scheduling flow.

I designed a new scheduling flow to differentiate Marvin from the current landscape, while following best practices in design and health care.

More comfortable video interactions

I worked on micro and macro interactions to create a more mindful and seamless transition into a video session for patients.