The product
Dr. Justin Chien & Associates is a family general dentistry that strives to provide equal-opportunity services to anyone that walks through their door.
The challenge
Dr. Chien’s dentistry has been in business for over 30 years and their entire patient onboarding process has been pen and paper since the beginning whereas competitors in the area have moved their services online.
Role
Designer, Researcher
Duration
5 weeks
Category
Appointments, Medical, Health
Why I made this project
With the rapidly changing and technology-driven world we live in, many small businesses do not have the resources or ability to adapt to new times.
I wanted to give back by helping a local dentistry take their successful offline business online. I believe age, gender, location, and other factors shouldn’t be a barrier to upscaling your business and pursuing your dreams.
The current framework
Dr. Justin Chien & Associates have conducted their entire patient onboarding process over the phone for the past 31 years.
The need
Since 2018 more than half of small businesses have established an online website and seen an increase in conversion rates and revenue because of it.
Brand Audit
I identified 3 highly-rated dentists that are direct competitors in the geographical area of the client and analyzed their online appointment-making experience to find patterns. I began by making myself more knowledgeable about the current market and what’s out there in terms of fitness apps. After browsing through the app store, I identified three main types of fitness apps that offer personalized fitness programs.
Competitive Analysis
Brea Dentists
Craft Smiles
Mint Dental
The good
All websites have an easily accessible appointment form that is able to be completed in three steps or less.
The bad
There is a lack of filters for appointment details such as day, time, and dentist (Craft Smiles, Mint Dental) and insurance options are unclear (Brea Dentists, Mint Dental).
I conducted a survey on social media channels to understand what factors are important to those making online dental appointments.
Online appointment system
Accepts your insurance
8 respondents
What factors do you take into account when looking for a new dentist?
62.5%
Patient testimonials
62.5%
High ratings and reviews
75%
100%
User survey
I interviewed the business owner to identify the demographic breakdown of the patient base to better understand and empathize with who this product is being designed for. I came up with three personas from the data collected and validated them with the trainer on what descriptors made the most sense and combined her input into one primary persona.
Personas
Using the findings from the user survey along with what was seen among competitors, I laid out the priority features for the first phase as well as planning features for the next phase.
Feature roadmap
I laid out the flow of the current patient onboarding process that is done over the phone to better understand how to translate it into an online appointment system.
Flow diagrams
Current patient onboarding process
Using the feature roadmap I focused on creating responsive mid-fidelity wireframes for the homepage and internal pages.
Wireframes
Appointment system
After getting down the static features of the site, I used the flow diagram to focus on fully building out the appointment system which was the main dynamic feature of the website.
The client requested to keep the brand colors blue, white, and teal along with evoking the brand message of clean and genuine.
High-fidelity UI
Prototype
I created a clickable prototype with my high-fidelity designs for the first round of usability testing.
Users tested out the prototype by completing 2 missions: locating certain information and making an appointment
Objective
I wanted to test the ease of locating information on the site and the appointment making flow.
Method
7 users were given an online prototype to test out through unmoderated user testing site Maze.
Locating information task
Findings
Making an appointment
Those who were indirectly successful in finding information skipped the “About us” page, which could mean that they assumed it was the same as the homepage.
Findings
The user who gave-up, left the site after the contact information step while making the appointment.
Usability testing
In the first round of usability testing, I wanted to focus on optimizing page navigation and making the appointment making process as seamless as possible.
Revisions
Page navigation
Because half of the users that strayed from the expected path skipped over the “About us” page, I added in a “Home” tab to clarify which page is currently the landing page.
Adding in a home tab also gives users an explicit way to return to the landing page besides clicking the logo to return home which assumes users are familiar with that design pattern.
Appointment making process
The second step (filling out contact information) had the highest amount of misclicks in the appointment-making process. To reduce misclicks, I changed the required name field to one line and added an optional field for the preferred name as well as increased spacing for the preferred contact method.
This revision is also consistent with name fields on other parts of the site. Also, it is more inclusive and eliminates having two input fields on one line.
Next steps
Another round of user testing would help in validating the revisions made in the design, hopefully leading to lower rates of misclicks and faster time to complete the main flow.
Validate iterations
Phase 2
The focus was first to get a minimum viable product out where people could get information about the office and easily make an appointment. Next is to focus on customizing the appointment experience with user profiles including saved information and account creation.
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