Break the Cycle
Unlike traditional diseases, recovering from addiction is a lifelong battle.
“My family thought I was ‘cured’ after a month in the treatment center. However, I relapsed and ended up going back to the treatment center. The truth is, treatment center only got the toxins out of my body. The thought pattern that poisoned me over the past ten years was still there – Staying sober after leaving the treatment center is the toughest part.”
Unfortunately, current aftercare practices are substandard. Many patients end up relapsing and going back to treatment centers multiple times.
At WEconnect, we want to break the cycle. We help patients sticking to their recovery routines and keep patients' support network informed, as described in the Product Ecosystem below.
Product Ecosystem
Here, I mainly discuss the consumer-facing mobile app. If you wish to see the enterprise-facing web app, please click here.
Project Snapshots
Honor the Design Process
As an early stage startup, our product team moves quickly. However, “move quickly” is NEVER EVER equal to cut corners in the design process.
If you want to hear more about my design process, read on. I’ll talk about how I redesigned the onboarding experience.
The Problem – High Abandon Rate during Onboarding
Our usage data revealed an over 40% abandon rate during onboarding. Patients communicated that the registration process was complicated and asked for too much information.
Screenshot from App usage data
List out Friction Points
I conducted a series of guerrilla user testing with people who are currently recovering from addiction. I broke down the current onboarding experience into six stages and listed out all the friction points within each stage.
"Uncertainty," "lacking a sense of privacy," "overwhelming," and "a sense of urgency" is the major friction points during onboarding.
The current onboarding was in favor of WEconnect's payers (Insurance Companies and Treatment Centers who view patients' data). Therefore, customers were forced to answer lots of personal questions without sufficient explanations. Overall, the current design failed to build a sense of trust between customers and the WEconnect App.
What to Improve
Main problem: "Too long"
Solution: Collect "just enough" information during onboarding.
The graph showed the amount of effort for a customer to enter the information and whether the information was required during onboarding. It was generated based on technical requirements, payers’ requests, and WEconnect's current business model
Other problems:
"Too vague" - The solution is to provide sufficient explanation.
"Too urgent" - The solution is to let patients set up recovery routines at their own pace.
User Flow
A high-level representation was included in the design brief.
Wireframes
Validate with Patients
After validating with six patients, multiple changes were proposed. I will share some highlights below:
1. Too much explanation on account types: Initially, patients had trouble choosing account types. I took out the explanation page and the problem was solved. It turned out that too much information jeopardized their decision making.
2. More hand-holding when the patient is adding routines: Patients expressed uncertainty when they are adding routines. Typical concerns are “what is the bare minimal?” “When am I done?” “Which should I add first?” I added step-by-step guides, providing a structure to get them up and running.
3. Opt-out instead of Opt-in: Patients tap “No” without reading the question. This was especially problematic since treatment center code provided patients pre-paid accounts and linked them to a specific counselor. I left this page default to “Yes”.
