Platano: Personal Health Management

Platano is a mobile application used by clinicians at Dell Medical Center, designed to help users self-manage personal health and Type 2 Diabetes. Through tracking meals, setting goals, monitoring progress, and getting feedback, not only are users better able to understand their diagnoses, but healthcare providers are also better able to provide personalized and accurate care. Platano is primarily used in clinics with under-/un-insured patients throughout the U.S. - patients at these clinics have varying degrees of tech literacy.
OVERVIEW
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Engage participants from underserved communities in gathering data
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Transform patient-generated data into knowledge for patients and providers
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Include data beyond diet to help patients achieve goals and develop actionable insights
GOALS
My Role
UX Research, Ideation, UX Design, Prototyping
Our Team
Individual Project
Course
Rapid Prototyping and Lean UX Methodologies
Platano should make it easy for users to self-monitor, set goals, enter data, and track progress
CLIENT KICKOFF

ABRIDGED COMPARATIVE EVALUATION

LEAN UX CANVAS



01. Motivators for goal reaching
Rotating monthly/weekly goals
Infographics to highlight progress
02. Expedited data entry
Only image and goal required for initial entry
Simplified in-app surveys
Quick add for yesterday's meal
Saved/recent meals and items
03. Optional functions
Purchase training and nutrition programs
Don't need to enter blood glucose if approved
Adaptive user interface
Integration with data from wearables
UX CANVAS FOCAL AREAS
USER SCENARIO

Creating a user scenario made it possible to focus deeply on specific functionality during design
WIREFRAMES

DESIGN PROCESS
ITERATIONS

I focused a lot on iterations, letting myself play with both color and functionality. Through class discussions, individual meetings, and constant ideation, I was able to develop the UX, keeping in mind the takeaways from previous steps.
SELECTED HI-FI MOCKUPS



FULL PROTOTYPE WALKTHROUGH
Getting feedback throughout proved essential on a project I otherwise completed individually
LESSONS LEARNED
When there are many opportunities for improvement, it can be helpful to identify a specific area to focus on, whether that is through a user scenario, survey data, interview feedback, etc.
While it can be tempting to create elaborate designs, it is important to keep the needs of the users in mind, especially if they are a certain demographic. In my case, I needed to balance the desire for experimental design with the functionality that might accessible to users in my population, with varying degrees of tech-literacy.
Even when working on a project alone, it is necessary to get feedback from others on my designs. Although user testing was out of scope for this project, discussions and feedback with peers helped me to advance my design and clarify some of the functionality.
Although it can be time-consuming, it is better to go into too much detail first and then step back to choose an area to focus on, rather than staying too much at the surface level and not digging into the actual problem space.
If I could expand on this project, I would explore solutions to help users with Type 2 Diabetes log their glucose levels and other health data. While I am happy with the area that I worked on, I feel there is a lot of opportunity in the space of monitoring glucose levels for those who do not have access to sophisticated monitoring technologies.