Carolina Home Health Care
A Contract Project.
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Revolutionizing a home health care company’s approach to finding employees and clients with a responsive web design.
High-Level Overview
Client: Carolina Home Health Care
My Role: Product Designer (UX Designer, UI Designer, Business Strategy, Research, and Writing)
Team: 2 Developers, 2 Business Managers
Timeline: 80 hours over 8 weeks for design, development is underway
Toolkit: Figma & Pinterest
Problem.
The What
The company wishes to hire more nurses and connect with potential patients, but its outreach relies solely on word-of-mouth.
Goal.
The Why
Patients struggle to find suitable caregivers and the company wants to bridge that gap by efficiently recruiting more qualified nurses.
Solution.
The How
Gather insights on building credibility in the home healthcare industry to design a sustainable, responsive website that enables seamless job applications for potential employees and service inquiries for potential patients.
Project Onset.
Carolina Home Health Care (CHHC) contacted me because they did not have an online presence to hire more nurses and procure more patients.
Background.
Carolina Home Health Care is an established company located in Charlotte, NC that provides home health care with a primary focus on the elderly and disabled. To heighten their credibility, they would like their own responsive website where they can easily be found and post updated information on the internet.
The Challenge.
As mentioned, the company is well established. However, one of their challenges is finding more staff (namely nurses and CNA’s) and building on their client base. They must be proactive and go out of their way and find them, which cuts down on time. I suggested that the website have a section focusing on employment and another on potential clients to harness efficiency.
01
Probing the Healthcare Industry.
What is Home Health Care?
According to Medicare.gov, home health care is a broad term that encompasses at-home services for various illnesses and injury. It’s less expensive, more convenient, and as effective as health care at outside facilities. Since Carolina Home Health Care has a primary focus on Medicaid plans, it’s important to map out Medicaid’s benefits on the website, as well.
Terminology #1.
It’s important to note that ‘Health Care’ and ‘Healthcare” are often used interchangeably, but have different meanings. For the sake of clarity in this case study, here’s a quick vocabulary lesson:
02
Users Want To Be Able To Trust Their Caregivers.
I carried out interviews with 5 participants who take care of loved ones who need home health care. This allows insight into users who need home care, as well as loved ones they depend on to assist them with health services. From these interviews, 4 key insights were gathered:
Brought up language barriers as a major concern when trying to find the right healthcare provider.
Named compassion/empathy and the ability to develop genuine relationships with the patient as the number one quality for trusting a Home Health Care Company.
Claim that finances are not a factor when deciding on care, but their insurance plans help them maintain their current care methods.
Needed assistance with proper distribution of their daily medications from a loved one.
Using Competitors’ Prestige as a Benchmark.
I asked the Stakeholders who they consider to be their biggest competitors and they listed some local, one regional, and one global. They shared that their ultimate goal is to match up to the global and regional competitors’ prestige.
I paid special attention to what kind of info I could extract solely from each of their websites and no other resources. Aspects that were compared were the companies’ specialty, services advertised, payment information, career information, and customer service.
Competitors Have Too Much Clutter.
Most of the websites had unnecessary fluff throughout their web pages. It’s important to keep it simple because:
1. Many potential users can’t read or see well.
2. Users want to find answers quickly.
Since the Stakeholders mentioned that they want to match up to the prestige of the global and regional competitors, here are some of their strengths:
1. Bayada was the only company to showcase most of their awards and endorsements, which increases their credibility.
2. Both Bayada and AccentCare were the only websites that had a user-friendly chat feature (it was clear that the other companies’ websites could benefit from this feature to cut through all the clutter they have on their websites.)
03
Provisional Personas Lead To Our Prospective User.
Due to the fact that home care can encompass a wide range of services for different needs, it was important to explore the main needs that Carolina Home Health Care accommodates. More specifically, there are specific users that CHHC are trying to attract to their website.
To narrow down which persona to focus on, I created 4 provisional personas: The Sports Injury Patient, The Senior Patient, The Loved One, and The Potential Employee.
Ultimately, the deciding factor for which persona to focus on is the following piece of research: “The majority (70%) of home health care patients are 65 years of age and older.” - National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)
Meet Lucia!
Lucia Gonzalez is an 87 year old senior citizen who lives with her daughter’s little family after her husband, Mr. Gonzalez, passed away. Though she has Diabetes and mobility issues, she wants to live a long and healthy life without relying on her family to take care of her health needs.
Picture this: Carolina Home Health Care’s services would allow her to get the specialized care that she needs while simultaneously allowing her to live comfortably with her children and grandchildren!
Lucia’s User Journey Illustrates The Root Of Her Needs, Goals, And Expectations.
To better empathize with how Lucia would come across Carolina Home Health Care’s Website, I created a user journey map consisting of 5 main phases that occur after a scenario takes place: Lucia falls onto the floor yet again and admits that she needs assistance. Any facial emotion other than the ‘happy face’ are the ones we want to correct within our product and bring a peaceful experience to the user!
04
It’s A Match!
Value Proposition Canvas Ensures That The Customers’ Needs And My Clients’ Business Services Match.
The gain creators, pain relievers, and products and services of the company’s value proposition must match the consumer’s gains, jobs, and pains in order to confirm that the redesign will address both parties’ needs.
For example, Lucia’s pain point of only speaking Spanish matches CHHC’s pain reliever that many of their employees are bilingual!
Activity Flows Illustrate That The Design Will Serve Its Purpose.
This particular website is meant to serve as a quick tool rather than something to surf around on and create conversions Therefore, instead of creating a full user flow, I found it helpful to create activity flows to map out the simple actions users are likely to take on the website.
Terminology #2.
Throughout this project, I was careful to research medical and medical plan terminology and follow up with stakeholders to make sure they are correct, such as with VHA vs. VA and Medicaid vs. Medicare. Just one letter can make a difference and I wanted to avoid making a mistake that would get my clients into any legal trouble!
05
Building The Backbone.
Sketches.
At this point, I finalized which features and pages I wanted to include on the site. Based on the information architecture I mapped out with a site map, I drew 9 rough, yet detailed sketches to brainstorm what each page would include. With numerous pages to include and wanting to keep the Nav Bar simple for accessibility reasons, I opted to stack the pages under 3 main tabs: Patients + Families, Caregivers, and Contact Us.
Discussion With Stakeholders Led To Refinements.
The sketches were converted to wireframes and they were sent to the stakeholders for approval. Two main discussions took place that led to 1 iteration and 1 consideration:
Iteration: Stakeholders wanted a Nav Bar with nothing stacked underneath to ensure potential clients don’t miss important pieces of information. I agreed and expanded the Nav Bar to reflect this without compromising on accessibility (by spacing them apart enough that they can be read clearly, but aren’t smashed together).
Consideration: Stakeholders wanted “Apply Here” at the beginning of each page, but I reasoned that it could give off a “desperate for help” impression that detracts from getting new patients and even potential employees. In order to avoid sending the message that they may not have adequate and/or experienced employees (which is nowhere near true), I met them in the middle and suggested subtle hints to apply throughout most pages rather than a bold header at the top of each.
Hi, Janki from the future 2023 - looking back, I should have A/B tested this to gauge what users thought of this concern!)
Wireframes Were Used For A First Round Of Testing.
Once the Stakeholders approved, I performed a brief Mid-Fidelity usability test with 4 users for focus on the content rather than colors and imagery. Users found the content to be laid out in an appealing manner and intuitive to navigate.
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The homepage provides all possible links that the navigation bar provides so that the user can find everything at a glance on one page.
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The “Services” page briefly breaks down each service CHHC offers so that potential clients don’t have to jump through multiple pages regarding their inquiry.
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The “Employment” page organizes potential job opportunities based on experience level and job type, as well as offers simple, yet compelling reasons to join the CHHC team.
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The “About” page showcases the CHHC team’s experience and expertise so that potential clients and employees can build trust with their credibility.
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06
Bringing The Design To Life.
Mood Board.
To get inspiration for a color story and potential logo, I browsed through Pinterest and came up with a moodboard of professional, yet uplifting images in the health care theme. Blues, Green, and Yellows are common for the Health industry because psychologically they welcome trust, calm, and hope, which is what users have expressed their desire for in User Interviews.
Brainstorming Logos.
I ran with the inspiration from the moodboard and performed a Crazy Eights exercise by brainstorming 8 potential logos, each in 30 seconds. From there, I narrowed it down to 2 iterated logos based on their simplicity and ability to still hold their identity if made a solid color.
4 variants of the final 2 logos were created for the Stakeholders to choose from and they loved number 4! However, they briefly mentioned that they do have existing brand colors on their brochures and thus requested that I change the mint green to a light blue.
Hi-Fi Prototype Ready for User Testing.
After finalizing the branding, I was able to create the Hi-Fi Prototype. I made sure to take into account other aspects of branding for Carolina Home Health Care, such as portraying their appreciation for diversity through the images chosen.
User Testing
To gauge the success of the product, the flows that were tested was chosen because they were integral to the goals of the design. 7 participants between the ages of 26 and 65 were asked to participate in 2 research methods:
1.) Moderated remote testing via zoom(using the think-aloud method).
2. Moderated in-person testing using the tangible product (using the think-aloud method).
In addition to users being able to successfully complete the flows, here are some notable insights:
Appreciated the simple choice of wording (much of medical terminology requires a lot of understanding and googling).
Noticed and appreciated the diversity in the photos – they felt “seen”.
Conveyed that the UI (size/contrast) are going to benefit a wide audience.
Expressed that the UI was appropriate through words like “comfort” and “calming”.
07
A Bitter Pill to Swallow.
Iterations.
Though I wanted my design decisions to be a success, user testing gave me some insight as to what may need to be changed for optimal usability. These changes mainly revolved around the color red:
Iteration #1:
Iteration #2:
08
The Final Product
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Services Page
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FAQ Page
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Confirmation Page
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About Page
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Employment Page
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Lessons.
What I Learned.
Design Hand-off: When I did my first contract role with Narmada Winery, I wasn’t as involved in development after the hand-off. This caused a lot of small details, such as spacing, colors, and sizing to be off. It was a MAJOR industry learning lesson that in order to build a quality product, designers and developers must continue to build a relationship even after hand-off.
Communication: When working with a client, it’s important to find a happy medium between what you know is best as a designer who bases decisions off of research and also with what the client wants to see on the product they are paying for. I’m glad I had this opportunity to sharpen my communication skills.
Unmoderated Testing: I wish I had done additional unmonitored testing with this product on Maze to accurately see how users navigate it without a single grain of help!
Timed Testing: If I could go back, I would have timed my users per task and charted it out to see quantitatively where obstacles were, as well as where they spent the most time reading.
I’m evolving - update 2023: As I noted up in my case study, as a new product designer, it was easy to forget to back up design decisions based on user data. Reflecting back as Janki from the future 2023, I acknowledge how easy it is to let these things slip through the cracks and it shows I’m evolving as a designer to be able to recognize it.
Next Steps.
Long-Term Impact.
More Accessibility Options: One local competitor of CHHC had the option to choose from 3 different text sizes on their website for those with visual impairments. To complement the high contrast on the CHHC design, it would be beneficial to add this option so users who need it don’t have to toggle with their browser’s magnification!
Conversions: Now that the Carolina Home Health Care website is live and I helped them set up Google Analytics, I plan to check back in with the stakeholders to see how the website has impacted their business!
Further Testing: As always, if this were a product that I’d work on for years to come, a crucial next step would be to test the other responsive designs to understand how the type of device affects usability for each task and scenario.