Exowear

Innovating Healthcare

The journey from concept to prototype for a wearable device app and an internal tool

Start-Up Background

Stephen and William Cheng, twin brothers and medical tech engineers, had been taking their grandmother to physical therapy twice a week for a year. Initially, their goal was simply to support her recovery. However, witnessing the challenges she faced in making consistent progress ignited their passion for enhancing patient care. They realized that physical therapists lacked reliable at-home exercise data, so the brothers invented a wearable device designed to measure knee mobility and movement.

The goal

They asked my team of two designers to design a software that physical therapists could use to assign at-home exercises and a mobile app that patients could use to perform these exercises while wearing Exowear.

Deliverables

A fully interactive web app prototype

A companion mobile app prototype

A comprehensive design system to ensure future scalability

Detailed user flow documentation

Handoff specifications for development teams"

MEtrics

- Percentage of stakeholder requirements met

​ - Percentage of features tested in prototypes

my role

My colleague and I led a 0-1 design project that evolved from concept to functional prototypes for both web and mobile platforms. I followed a user-centered design thinking approach, starting with extensive research and ideation, moving through iterative design phases, and culminating in high-fidelity prototypes.

design process

Domain research​ insights

With the annual Medicare cap for physical therapy at only $1,940 per person, it seems crucial for physical therapists to maximize the effectiveness of each visit.

I conducted this analysis to spotlight significant trends in our competitive landscape review

three key opportunities emerged

  • Modernize exercise plans

    Patients are still given paper exercise handouts. Some patients are asked to journal their exercises between appointments.

  • Send wearables home

    75% of wearable sensor competitors are geared for inpatient therapy only. They don't empower the patient to adhere to a home exercise program.

  • Provide reliable data

    During appointments, therapists gather lots of data, but the only information they get once patients go home is what they self-report which is subjective and non-specific.

Initial user research

To fully understand what happens during a physical therapy appointment we conducted interviews and contextual inquiries with three physical therapists and one surgeon.

Therapists are very busy and they don't have time to really think about things that they can improve. They also don't have time to adopt new technology. Currently, they look up exercises on the system, print them out on paper, and then assign them to patients by showing them at the clinic.

Expanded user research

Since therapists and surgeons are not very motivated to change the way they do things, but they are highly motivated to engage productively with their patients, we returned to our research with a focus on the patients.

We interviewed six patients who have gone through at least one surgery and/or physical therapy to understand their experiences and expectations.

Key learnings from patients

Patients are expected to repeat the exercises by referring to the piece of paper at home. At each appointment, they verbally share how it's going with their physical therapist.

Most patients don't do the exercises they're assigned. Some said it was because they couldn't remember the right way to do the exercises. Others simply lost motivation.

Interview synthesis

We analyzed hours of interviews with physical therapists and patients using affinity mapping. This allowed us to identify the aspects of the problem space Exowear is uniquely suited to solve and to clarify the requirements of any solution we would design.

archetypes

Each person involved in a patient's recovery journey has a unique role to play.

  • Patient

    They're worried about the pain and frustrated by limitations that make them more dependent on others. Their actions affect the speed and fullness of their recovery more than any other archetype.

  • Support person

    They're invested in the patient’s recovery, but they want to show their support without being overbearing.

  • Physical therapist

    They assign the Home Exercise Program (HEP) based on recommendations by the surgeon and their own observations of the patient.

  • Surgeon

    They evaluate patients and prescribe post-surgery physical therapy. They expect therapists to keep them up-to-date.

Mapping the journey map

With so many people playing key roles in the patient's recovery journey, we wanted to layer them together in our journey map. We were particularly interested in places where poor information quality had a negative impact on patient progress.

Dualistic approach

The problem of poor information can't be solved by a therapist app alone. Patients also need a way to capture and share high-quality information with their therapists.

Reframing the problem

Therapists need a lightweight way to assign a home exercise plan to their patients.

​Patients need convenient access to their home exercise plan details and a way to track their progress between appointments so they can give an accurate report to their therapist.

Design principles

  • 5 seconds or less

    Information is understandable in 5 seconds or less with no new learning.

  • Make it count

    Leverage data for maximum value and impact.

  • Frictionless

    Minimize the learning curve. Meet users where they are no matter their age or techno-savvy.

  • Right-hand tech

    Simplify patient care micro-routines and extend the supportive influence of the therapist at home.

Iterations

I was responsible for the heart of the patient app – the dashboard. In one concept, I highlighted the stats and showed how they had changed. In the other, I used a simple list presentation with raw data.

In the concept testing sessions, therapists and patients had different priorities and ways of making meaning from the data. I was excited to use this insight and for the next round I designed a dashboard focused on patients with a separate report view for therapists.

Usability testing

Therapist report

The "PT Report" tab is for patients to show to their therapist during the appointment. It shows the recovery progress and any blockers that the patients may have encountered. This aligns with "Right Hand Tech" and "Make It Count" design principles.

Therapist web app top task

For the therapist web app, we designed a simple one-page interface for therapists to pick the exercises. Once they are saved, the exercise will be loaded to the patient mobile app. This eliminates the paper exercise step and stores history every time the therapist opens up the patient page.

Final design