PROJECT
Phynix
2022
DESIGN CHALLENGE
Design and prototype an app that encourages physiotherapy patients to stay on top of their home exercises and get better faster.
TOOLS
Figma
Illustrator
Miro
ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES
Team Lead
Implementing process, collaborating on empathize, define, and ideation phases and editing.
Designer
Information architecture and user flow, branding, wireframing, and prototyping.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
A physiotherapy patient with a sports injury needs a way to stay accountable for home exercises because there's not enough time in the day and it's hard to stay motivated when exercising alone.
SOLUTION
An app that works in collaboration with physiotherapy clinics that uses a countdown to encourage patients to finish their home exercises and return to sport as soon as possible.
USER STORY
This is Joey
Three months ago, during a recreational soccer game, Joey tore his ACL. As a result, he was referred to a physiotherapist. Joey didn’t mind going to physio, he thought his physiotherapist was great and she educated him about his torn ACL. She did exercises with him in the clinic, and provided exercises to do at home as well.
Joey went home and began his recovery program the next day. He was able to stay on top of his exercises for the first couple weeks, but after that, he had trouble finding time among his other obligations, and he struggled to stay motivated and in routine.
At his physio appointments, the physiotherapist could recognize that he wasn’t making as much progress as he should be, and warned him that if he doesn’t stay on top of his exercises, he won’t be able to return to sport as quickly as he wants.
PROCESS
Gaining understanding & empathy
The team began the design challenge with user interviews and empathy mapping so that we could start to understand our users and their specific pain points, behaviours, and motivations around the topic of physiotherapy.
Synthesizing our research
As we synthesized our findings, we noticed that many of our participants got their injuries from playing sports, with goals to return to their normal lives, activities, and sports. Our main insights were that they feel there’s not enough time in the day and they’re unmotivated when they’re not with their physiotherapist. Personas were created to give our team clarity and direction about our users.
Ideation: Reframing problems as opportunities
As we started to ideate, we asked ourselves a variety of ‘how might we…’ questions to reframe our problems as opportunities. We brainstormed concepts and features that might solve our problem, and narrowed them down to what’s important as our minimum viable product (MVP), and bonus features that would be nice to have.
After assessing the competitive analysis, we realized we needed a unique selling point (USP) to set us apart from the solutions that are already established in the industry. These unique features are:
Having the user’s physiotherapist input the exercises for the patient to keep them connected even when working out at home.
Data visualization and stats that both the physiotherapist and the patient can refer to track the user’s progress.
A countdown timer to promote urgency to finish exercises to ensure the user finds the time and keeps a daily routine.
A rewards system for completing exercises on time that gives the user points to spend at their clinic towards future treatments.
While a rewards system may keep users motivated, it may be too difficult to track whether or not they are truly completing their exercises, or faking it for a reward.
Information architecture & user flow
I used the card sorting technique to define the content organization within the information architecture, and mapped out the user flow to understand the navigation and journeys people might take.
Wireframes
Branding
When brainstorming names, we realized that physiotherapy was helping patients get back to normal life, in a regenerative way, like a Phoenix. We put that together with “physio” and came up with the name Phynix.
The mythical bird inspired our logo, along with the healthcare plus sign. The colour choices and gradients relating to fire were also inspired by the phoenix. Montserrat was chosen as a modern and accessible sans-serif typeface with weight variations that could be used for hierarchy.
RESULT
Connection to the physiotherapy clinic
Phynix works in collaboration with the user’s physiotherapy clinic and physiotherapist. Having the user’s physiotherapist input the exercises for the patient keeps them connected even when the patient is doing exercises at home. Both the physiotherapist and the user can then use the app to track the patient’s progress, completion rates, difficulty levels, and pain levels.
USER STORY CONTINUED
Joey downloads Phynix
Jump ahead a couple months, and Joey uses Phynix every day.
He can see the exercises that the physiotherapist has set up for him, as well as the amount of reps and sets he’s supposed to perform.
He’s been eager to keep up his streaks, and finish each session before the 24 hour countdown ends.
Exercises
Once he selects an exercise, he can see a description of the exercise, watch a video if he needs, and log the amount of weight that he used. He also has to fill out the difficulty level of the exercise, and his pain levels for his physiotherapist to monitor.
In case he exits without saving, a confirmation pops up to allow him to save his progress. Similarly, if Joey forgets to fill in all of the areas of the exercise, a warning comes up on the home page to let him know it’s incomplete.
Keeping track of progress
Joey and his physiotherapist can use Phynix to track his progress, see how he’s improving, or identify patterns that might be holding him back.
They can track his completion rates and see how that might correlate with his difficulty and pain levels.
