Lifeblood
Securing many happy "bloody" returns
Ensuring Lifeblood donors are well informed and comfortable throughout the booking process so that they keep their appointments.
Team
Four UX Designers
Platform
Mobile Site
Timeline
4 weeks (remote)
Deliverables
Clickable high-fidelity prototype
Key features of MVP include Donor Essentials on the Homepage, a revised eligibility questionnaire and a
proposed new booking flow.
My Role
End-to-end UX process, Time Management
Problem
Our approach for this project focused on ensuring blood donors felt reassured and had access to all essential information throughout their donation booking journey.
To achieve this, our task
was to explore and solve
the following problem...
Potential donor
needs to understand
the process of blood donation so that
they feel comfortable
enough to donate.
Project
Objective
To improve
the digital experience
of Lifeblood users, so that they are encouraged
and motivated
to book more often.
Lifeblood has calculated that they need 140,000 more blood donors in 2022 to meet the needs of patients across Australia — an increase of 45%.
Lifeblood, a division of the
Australian Red Cross Society
— who care for and support over 25 million Australians around the country by providing; life-giving blood, plasma, transplantation and biological products for world-leading health outcomes, have recently seen significant drops in regular blood donations.
If we create a more empathetic, informative
and easy booking experience for donors then
it will solve the issues around cancellations.
In order to do this we are going to need time to conduct user research,
prototyping and testing - so we can deliver an increase in blood donations.
The Challenge
1.
How might we...
ensure donors have a positive experience so they donate regularly?
2.
How might we...
provide guidance to our users so that they keep their appointments?
3.
How might we...
educate/guide donors about the things they need to do in order to have
a smooth blood donation experience?
4.
How might we...
provide all the necessary information related to all the processes involved in donating blood?
Why was there a blood donor shortage?
Why were people cancelling their booked
blood donation appointments?
Understanding the landscape
Explore
To understand the landscape, we needed to delve a little deeper into the market
and the broader community.
We applied a combination of research methodologies to help us answer the above questions
and gain a better understanding of the problem and our users.
Although Lifeblood has no direct competitors in Australia, we reviewed similar
and comparable organisations. We identified patterns and opportunities by conducting site
audits, feature inventory, task analysis, and market research (reading news articles and reports).
We wanted to understand how other charitable organisations and businesses generate donors
and how they communicate their needs and values so users have a strong understanding and appreciation for what they do. Here is what we discovered...
Key Market Insights
We had so many of our own assumptions
and so many questions that needed answers...
it was time to talk to people!
Understanding Users
Prior to our 16 user interviews, we completed a thorough research and discussion plan.
The objective of the research plan was to reveal the behaviours, motivations and pain points felt around donation. Speaking to users was essential because we wanted to learn...
1.
How people felt about donating blood?
2.
If anything was preventing people from donating blood?
3.
What motivates people to donate anything?
Survey Analysis
To help support or disprove our qualitative insights gained through our user interviews,
we distributed a survey. These results would aid in our synthesis and decision-making.
We received 24 responses. We asked questions like...
"What are your most important motivations for donating?"
"Have you donated in the past?" "Do you currently donate?"
Key Survey Insights
Building empathy
Contextual Inquiry
We visited a Lifeblood Donor Centre to provide us with a more empathetic user perspective.
It was an opportunity to touch, feel, smell, see and hear the ins and out of a donor's experience for ourselves. And for me, it would be even more insightful — I was there to give blood. Well... that's what I thought. When I arrived, I was asked if I would consider donating plasma instead, as plasma was in short supply. I was initially a tad hesitant because I hadn't mentally prepared for a plasma donation and wasn't sure want to expect. But I really wanted to help - so following an explanation of the process, I was happy to give it a go. While I prepared to donate (by filling out a detailed questionnaire and having a one-on-one consult with a nurse), my teammates interviewed another donor and a staff member.
Here is what we found...
1.
Appointment cancellations were certainly a problem over winter, donors were unwell due to winter illness.
2.
Lifeblood centres were very busy over COVID lockdowns as blood donation was one of the few activities people were allowed to go out for. However, following the easing of restrictions and people returning to travel and their regular everyday lives cancellations were occurring.
3.
The one donor interviewed at the centre was a passionate regular donor who donated blood frequently with her partner. She was a student who booked her appointments via the mobile app and felt the process was easy and safe.
4.
Staff are friendly, professional and well-informed to help potential donors make informed decisions. They also made me feel so special and were so grateful that I volunteered to donate, even though in the end I was ineligible to donate on the day.
Define
Time to synthesise all our research data!
We needed to know who our user was and how it would affect our next steps.
Through affinity mapping, we were able to collaboratively sort and organise
all our insights from user interviews. This process generated clear
patterns of behaviour and helped to prioritise our ideas.
"If I knew more about giving blood,
I would consider it"
User Interview Participant
"I don't really know why I haven't donated"
User Interview Participant
Key User Research Insights
Our user research and field research did validate
and disprove some of our assumptions
around user behaviour.
Whom were we designing for?
Our research defined our users into two archetypes,
which we determined as...
To define our users we analysed our insights and observations to determine how we would proceed— were we designing for a persona or an archetype? As our demographic data wasn’t broad enough, we created archetypes based on donor activity patterns and behaviours. Using an empathy map, we were able to further define our users and identify their individual characteristics.
Which user to focus on?
Whom we would solve for sparked great discussion.
Although Lifeblood research considered existing donors more likely to make repeat donations, regular donors were under pressure due to increased winter illnesses and flooding events...
Our research exposed an opportunity. We need everyone who is eligible - to donate!
Our focus, therefore, pivoted to potential donors, in order to meet the needs of patients across Australia and achieve a 45% increase in blood donors by the end of 2022.
User Journey
To understand Emma's (Potential Donor) Journey it was important to map out
her experiences. These insights would evoke empathy and awareness
of specific user pain points and reveal opportunities.
-
To provide clear, multiple ways of accessing information
-
To ensure information is easily scannable
-
To simplify the registration process
-
To only propose donor centres with available booking times
Finding the balance
What were we trying to accomplish? Why did this problem need a solution?
We carefully considered the needs/goals of users and the business.
They needed to align so that we could build the right solution and targeted MVP.
Ideating Solutions
We ideated on all 4 of our HMW statements (in one sitting), using a core design sprint method - crazy 8's. Each round of time-boxed sessions generated various potential solutions to our problem within a short timeframe.
We then presented our ideas and explained the thinking behind each concept before we voted on our favourite features. Considering the needs of our users and the business, we recognised 24 key features, which we prioritised using a 2x2 Impact Effort matrix. We used the 2x2 Impact Effort Matrix to ensure we were building achievable solutions that would benefit both our users and Lifeblood.
Designing a framework
We each developed Low fidelity paper sketches based on our impact effort matrix findings.
We wanted to explore the basic structure and flow of the design.
We started with paper sketches because it's quick and easy to produce and would ensure we weren't blinded by UI. We then presented each of our designs to one another, discussed our proposed solutions and voted accordingly.
Refining the flow
Exisiting Flow
Login / Register
Check Eligibility
Book to Donate
Refined Flow
Check Eligibility
Book to Donate
Login / Register
Audits of the Lifeblood site and learnings from our user journey helped us better understand the content and the user booking flow. Our competitive and comparable market research and task analysis of similar organisations also exposed alternative processes.
We identified an opportunity to potentially guide users more efficiently into the booking process by making small - considered changes.
By moving "Check Eligibility" to the beginning of the task flow, users could confirm their eligibility to donate before filling out any personal information.
Sorting out structure
As part of the scope of this project, we needed to ensure that information was easily accessible and intuitive. Usability testing of the current Lifeblood site revealed opportunities for improvement within the global navigation menu.
To help us understand and learn about user expectations, we conducted an open-card sort using the UXMetrics tool to send out to our participants. In hindsight, perhaps a closed sort may have been more successful.
We discovered that the 60+ labels overwhelmed our users. Resulting in only four responses. Due to time restraints, we had to pivot our strategy and prepared an alternative menu that we would later test and iterate.
Wireframing
Usability Testing
We tested our mid-fidelity wireframes on five users to determine whether users could successfully book an appointment without any errors. We were pleased to discover that
100% of users completed the task without any errors.
We also uncovered the following opportunities for improvement...
I don't like feeling
pressured to donate
What we thought would encourage
users to respond and take action,
did quite the opposite!
Our "call to action" which included graphic indicators of current blood supply & plasma levels, made one
user very uncomfortable. They felt pressured into action. The language and images made them feel guilty
for not donating.
As this was identified as a pain-point
from our research - we needed to
pivot our approach and iterate our
messaging to ensure it was positive and inclusive.
I'm not really sure
how to answer these questions?
4 out of 5 users were confused.
The eligibility questions confused
users due to their format - users
weren't sure how to answer them.
Big problem!
Perhaps yes/no radio buttons would
resolve this issue?
We would need to iterate and re-test.
Too much to scroll.
3 out of 5 users disliked our
proposed date and time formats.
Users felt scrolling the date
and time was just too tricky.
This layout was potentially adding
to our user's cognitive load - we needed to change it. We collectively opted for a calendar popup instead.
Location first...
2 out of 5 users preferred to
select their location before
entering date > time.
There was an opportunity to revise
the flow so users could search
donor centres closest to them.
Our Solution
Next Steps
01
Further testing and development of our proposed solutions
with more users
02
Collaborate and present findings with the Lifeblood team to discuss feature & design rollout
03
Reflection of design process
04
Review of further opportunities
Learnings + Takeaways
•
Our team communicated really well. We had regular meetups and were flexible in working around everyone’s schedule.
•
Documenting all of our findings and project work into one google doc allowed easy access for the team
•
We were very thorough during our Project Planning phase.
We created a very detailed project plan and were clear about what we wanted to achieve. Adapting to changes.
•
Further, define and scrutinise our many features by applying hypothesis prioritisation statements to each feature - before plotting them onto an Impact Matrix. This would have streamlined our MVP solution to a specific area and/or key feature, that aligns with user & business needs.
•
As a team, we managed various project constraints; such as limited access to users for research and testing, working around our multiple schedules and even COVID-19.
We time-boxed sessions to ensure we were using our time together effectively.
•
I enjoyed working on this project, collaborating across all areas of the design process and more specifically adapting my experience in visual design to the development of mid and high-fidelity wireframes.
Let's make something
fun together!