A health companion for mothers

We collaborated with Hoag Medical Group to design their first digital experience for their Women’s Health Institute. In our 6-month partnership, we were able to launch a mobile app experience that provided women with personalized and holistic health guidance to seamlessly transition them from hospital to home. 

Client

Hoag Medical Group

Role
Lead Designer

Team
Executive Design Director (Anto C.), Program Manager (Maggie G.), Visual Designer (Rachel H.), Interaction Designer (Divya P.)

Bringing the hospital to the home
Hoag wanted to design a distinctive and clinically-relevant experience that could integrate its in-person expertise admist rising competition from regional and new tech entrants. As the highest ranked hospital system in Orange County, CA for labor and delivery — they aspired to expand their footprint from in-person to digital care to ensure that patients felt supported even when they weren't physically in the hospital. 

Our project began with qualitative user research — we interviewed 10 women (and 4 providers) who had differing experiences with pregnancy and child-birth. From those interviews, we were able to define the key value proposition of the product: a personal and holistic health guide that empowers users to take action and connect with their care team from the comforts of their own home. 

“They supported us really well at the hospital, but as soon as we left, that was it as far as the hospital was concerned.” — Hoag Patient

During the user research phase, we created summaries for each participant to better synthesize their 90-minute interview into key takeaways and themes. After affinity mapping across multiple participants, we were able to create user archetypes as well as key insights that we referenced throughout the design process. 

Defining the overall experience 
While the visual designers on the team were focused on developing the brand identify of the product experience, I facilitated working sessions with our strategist to determine the overall interaction model and product strategy of the experience. 

We ultimately focused the design of the app around 3 core digital pillars, which we explored the expression of in wireframes: 

1. Building a comprehensive understanding of the maternal journey through holistic health guidance and personalized resources

2. Developing a true collaborative relationship between women and their care teams through on-demand communication and virtual visits 

3. Taking in-context health actions through clinically informed nudges and tracking symptoms and activity. 

Alongside creating the wireframes of the experience, I also developed the interaction model that helped determine how the user would interact with the app from a systemic standpoint. 

In this model, key actions would take form as action trays or modals to keep the focus on the task at hand. Exploration and navigation would slide in from the left or right to showcase that the user is switching contexts. 

A warm experience that supports and guides
Hoag Medical Group was known for their bedside manner and approachable tone of voice when interacting with their patients. As this experience was meant to be an extension of their care, we wanted to make sure the digital experience evoked the same tone and feel. 

To evoke the sense of warmth, we leveraged a chat interface for the onboarding process and leveraged video recordings so that the mother could feel more connected to their care team. 

Validation throughout the process
Throughout the design process, we leveraged UserTesting in order to determine if the experience was resonating with our intended audience. These sessions were invaluable to efficiently gain quick insights and make adjustments to our designs. 

We also hosted bi-weekly office hours with a panel of Hoag providers — in these sessions we were able to ask key questions and gain feedback to help make sure our product would have an impact from a clinical standpoint. 

A beta experience launched within 6 months
Within 6 months, we were able to launch a beta experience that garnered over 4,000 signs ups. Throughout the beta experience, we were capturing feedback in order to make further adjustments to the overall experience. 

Today, the app has been officially launched by Hoag Hospital, under the name of Nona. 

This packaging of human-powered resources allows us to effectively enable moms to ‘take home’ the very high quality of care they experience at Hoag during delivery. The feedback we have gotten from the moms invited to our beta pilot has been extremely moving…we have been able to, little by little, dissipate the ‘wild west’ feeling that comes with parenthood.
— Head of Product and Design at Hoag 

The think what I like most about Nona is the 24/7 access...the
kindness of the guides, the reliability and not feeling judged
— Nona user