An innovative way to boost both physical and emotional well-being of pediatric patients.

Role

Research, Design, Branding, 3D Modeling

Time

May 2022 - September 2022

XFN Team

1 Project Manager, 1 Designer, 1 Marketer, 2 AR Developers

Tools

Adobe Creative Suite, Procreate, Maya, Mudbox, 8th Wall

Difficult to find peers who have similar circumstances as them

Hard to disclose the full extent of emotions to their parents

Few books for children focus on chronic illness and related mental health concerns

10 families at the University of North Carolina Medical Center

We covered various aspects of their lives, including daily routines, social interactions, and educational experiences. During the interview sessions, we created a warm and welcoming environment to ensure participants, especially the kids, felt comfortable sharing their experiences. We then analyzed the results into themes using Dedoose.

Interviewing a family at UNC hospital (obtained permission to show the photos)

Identified stressors associated with chronic illness

This is a hard group to recruit, so eventually we tested with three kids who were respectively 7, 8, and 12 years old.

Participants were given five task scenarios, here are three we focused on:

Register an account and sign in

Create a new journal

Making friend with Bob on Penpal panel

It was hard to help her relax

Anna wasn’t used to the setting of “getting tested” by a stranger and couldn't fully relax. When asked open-ended questions, she was a little nervous and couldn't quite express her thoughts.

Anna was trying to complete the second task

I reflected, researched, and decided to switch to “friendship pair testing”

I paired Ben and Sue to complete the test together. We provided the same tasks and encouraged Ben and Sue to explore this App together.

Successfully communicated using the children's mental models

It was very interesting to see that when one child was confused, another child could reorganize the task content through the child's language. I also learned a lot in the process of how to better approach youth users and support their interactive experience.

Difficult vocabulary

The term “register” and "block" is out of some kids (around age of 7)'s vocabulary

Solution: Change to simple words

Change "register" to "sign up"; Explain "block" on the pop-up before confirmation

Confusion between icons

Journal and Book icons are too similar for kids to differentiate

Solution: Create distinct icons

Change book icon to a open book instead of the book cover

Collaborating with Book Writers and Illustrators

For the bookshelf section, we will recommend personalized books on chronic illness and mental support to the kids, but there are not many books out there that focus on chronic illness for children. So we will have to recruit writers and illustrators to create books tailored for our users.

Recruiting Health Professionals

Chronic illness takes a toll on individuals both mentally and physically, so we want to provide support in managing both aspects.

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An innovative way to boost both physical and emotional well-being of pediatric patients.

What are the problems for children with chronic illness?

Solution we designed

Our process

Semi-structured Interviews

Design

After summarizing our design requirements as shown below, we used the Crazy 8 technique of brainstorming and came up with 50+ ideas. The following are the top ideas we voted for.

Prototype

Usability Inspection

This is a hard group to recruit, so eventually we tested with three kids who were respectively 7, 8, and 12 years old.

Participants were given five task scenarios, here are three we focused on:

First challenge: the shyness of Anna

These kids like the design

What could be improved