Elke is a responsive platform where users can order health products without prescription from their pharmacy and get them delivered at their doorstep. It’s a win for the users and for the pharmacies. That’s because pharmacies are often too busy and with Elke the waiting line in the store is decreased. I worked on this in 2019.
In the Netherlands it can be very busy for customers at the pharmacy with lines of 20 minutes or more. When ordering products at the pharmacy there could be a tape that answers instead of a human. The tape then asked you to clearly say who you are and what you want. You then hang up and have no idea if it’s ordered and when it will arrive.
That problem is equally annoying for the pharmacist, as they are incredibly busy and every moment that can be won by a user ordering and delivering products is great.
To start this off me and another UX designer did three weeks of research. During those three weeks we interviewed 6 people of the target group and 6 pharmacists to understand what their needs and pain points were. We analysed the research by putting it all the interesting output and quotes together in a Trello board. Out of those findings we created persona’s and customer journeys for the customer and the pharmacist. We shared our research findings with the stakeholders and organised a value proposition workshop for them. Together we created a concept with the results of the workshop and turned that into a prototype. We invited 6 people that are in our target group for a test and asked questions while they tried out the prototype to understand if they would use it.
This project was a result of 1 visual designer, three developers, 1 scrum master, 1 product owner and me as UX designer working together on one location. Nowadays everybody claims to work with the scrum method, but do they really? This was for me the first project to work as much scrum as possible together with development side by side week after week. The design was always 1 sprint ahead of development so we could think the designs through and document them for development. We did all of the scrum ceremonies and this process worked perfectly for this project. All the problems in sprints were addressed quickly, the review moments for design and development were perfect for getting feedback early on and working together with development was a breeze (it helps a ton if they sit next to you of course).
The starting product of Elke are incontinence products, thus the starting target group is anyone who needs incontinence products. While everyone can have incontinence problems, from the age of 60+ more and more people start to have those problems. That group is nowadays considered to being digital immigrant, everything related to digital is a language they have to put effort in to learn. So in other words, designing a website where they could order their incontinence products was going to be a challenge.
To design for the target group I had to research what becomes troublesome for digital interactions when people get old. Coincidentally Don Norman wrote a piece about how he is horrified with by the design choices made today that have little to no regard for the elder and less tech-savvy people. I think he is right, we should take a more inclusive approach in design and include edge cases as requirements when designing. To take a lot of the issues the target group faces into consideration, I had to go far beyond the WCAG accessibility standards. Here are a few of my discoveries what deteriorates when becoming older:
Fine motor skills
As we grow older the nerves in our fingers become less sensitive. This makes our response time slower and inevitably makes it harder to interact with a touch screen.
This can be an even bigger problem if the user suffers from Essential Tremor (ET) or Parkinson’s disease, nerve disorders characterised by uncontrollable shaking.
Cognitive abilities
Spatial working memory decreases. This means that the ability to remember where things are located and finding them becomes harder.
Working memory decreases. This is the ability to simultaneously grasp, retain and manage new information.
To cover these disabilities I paid more attention in designing small details that make the product easier to use. Here are a few of those details that are implemented throughout the product:
Avoid using (hidden) gestures because of possible Parkinson’s users and accidentally swipes. As well as making the touch area bigger than the button so it’s easier for the target group to tap
Don’t assume the target group will understand everything. This is why we always want to have an explanation at the more complex parts of the product to help them along.
Being extra consistent in where the user can find certain actions in then product. Never just hide something because it’s not needed, always give them a back button on the top-left corner and go next on the bottom for example.
And of course the obvious ones as a high enough contrast for readability, using copy that is familiar to the words the users would use and making sure the fold is always considered in a way that it’s clear there is more to find than is visible.