Physiobuddie

June 2023

Physiobuddie provides a bespoke and safe space for education, rehabilitation, and social connectivity.

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The project scope was to deliver an easily-accessible solution for patients to fulfil their recovery routines. I took full ownership of the design approach, project management and client care. Working closely with the client and an external app development team I produced several iterations of design and functionality testing to achieve an impactful final product. The public-facing version of this app (Flex Health) is available on the App Store and Google Play.

Role

Designer

Researcher

Project Manager

Team

The Lateral Group Development Team

Duration

4 months

The problem

Patients only fulfil their recovery goals if they can attend the treatment centre.

In order for patients to recover from an operation or prepare for an upcoming one, they must live in close proximity to the treatment centre and use its facilities under the supervision of the physiotherapists. However, this restricts the service to a travel radius as well as relying on those patients to be able to attend every week. How do we improve the experience of the current patients? How can we also extend the service to more patients?

The solution

Introduce an online service with scheduled exercises and regular check-ins.

Bring the service to the users

  • Bringing the service online means accessibility to anyone in the UK
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  • Users have instant access to their schedule and can easily plan the week ahead
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  • Metric tracking becomes constant and autonomous with health app integration, instead of manually assessed weekly on-site
Research

Remote recovery is a valid and effective option for patients.

I explored existing studies to examine how effective remote physiotherapy performed, compared to face-to-face appointments. One such study is from the Australian Physiotherapy Association:

“Remotely delivered physiotherapy with support via phone, text and an app is as good as face-to-face physiotherapy for the management of musculoskeletal conditions.”

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User interviews

Regular attendance causes an inconsistent and sometimes stressful recovery experience.

In addition to the client sharing their patients' previous feedback on the service's ease-of-use, I invited 8 patients into the research phase to gain further insight into their pain points.

Research questions

  1. How often do you need to attend the centre?
  2. What challenges do you face to attend your appointments?
  3. Do you feel your recovery is on track with your current schedule?
  4. Does your treatment clash with areas of your lifestyle?
  5. If you could do recovery sessions at home, would that alleviate any issues?

Key insights

Theme 1: Accessibility - It can be a long drive, particularly for those in rural outskirts.

Theme 2: Availability - Appointment slots are limited due to the face-to-face time required.

Theme 3: Scheduling - Consistently attending around work, gym or family plans for a 30-60m appointment is a challenge.

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Approach

Introduce an app that promotes regular engagement, schedules recovery and provides virtual 1-2-1 support with the physiotherapist.

Following the research insights, a sensible approach was to package the service into an app to offer the same support but with more flexibility around patients' lifestyles:

  1. Automatic metric-tracking that would usually be manually assessed
  2. Scheduled exercise sessions with some tolerance on their completion
  3. Regular 1-2-1 check-ins over video calls
  4. A database of documentation and journal entries
The solution

Introduce an online service with scheduled exercises and regular check-ins.

Bring the service to the users

  • Bringing the service online means accessibility to anyone in the UK
    ‍
  • Users have instant access to their schedule and can easily plan the week ahead
    ‍
  • Metric tracking becomes constant and autonomous with health app integration, instead of manually assessed weekly on-site
Research

Remote recovery is a valid and effective option for patients.

I explored existing studies to examine how effective remote physiotherapy performed, compared to face-to-face appointments. One such study is from the Australian Physiotherapy Association:

“Remotely delivered physiotherapy with support via phone, text and an app is as good as face-to-face physiotherapy for the management of musculoskeletal conditions.”

‍

‍

User interviews

Regular attendance causes an inconsistent and sometimes stressful recovery experience.

In addition to the client sharing their patients' previous feedback on the service's ease-of-use, I invited 8 patients into the research phase to gain further insight into their pain points.

Research questions

  1. How often do you need to attend the centre?
  2. What challenges do you face to attend your appointments?
  3. Do you feel your recovery is on track with your current schedule?
  4. Does your treatment clash with areas of your lifestyle?
  5. If you could do recovery sessions at home, would that alleviate any issues?

Key insights

Theme 1: Accessibility - It can be a long drive, particularly for those in rural outskirts.

Theme 2: Availability - Appointment slots are limited due to the face-to-face time required.

Theme 3: Scheduling - Consistently attending around work, gym or family plans for a 30-60m appointment is a challenge.

‍

‍

Approach

Introduce an app that promotes regular engagement, schedules recovery and provides virtual 1-2-1 support with the physiotherapist.

Following the research insights, a sensible approach was to package the service into an app to offer the same support but with more flexibility around patients' lifestyles:

  1. Automatic metric-tracking that would usually be manually assessed
  2. Scheduled exercise sessions with some tolerance on their completion
  3. Regular 1-2-1 check-ins over video calls
  4. A database of documentation and journal entries
Iterations

Three major design evolutions.

Following continued research and waves of internal testing with designers and developers, I refactored several initial approaches. This paved the way for a more streamlined user experience, such as more effective data handling or improved focus on tasks.

One
Two
Three
Iterations

Three major design evolutions.

Following continued research and waves of internal testing with designers and developers, I refactored several initial approaches. This paved the way for a more streamlined user experience, such as more effective data handling or improved focus on tasks.

No items found.
Introducing

Physiobuddie

Goal tracking

Insightful hub of progress metrics

Key progress values can be consistently updated by syncing with patients' health apps. For those without, they can manually enter their latest values - with the help of scheduled push notification reminders.

Large and punchy numbers relay core stats, while graphs provide a clear view of the journey's start and end, and how their progress compares against them. This autonomous system gathers more regular and more accurate health data to assist in a patient's journey.

iPhone frameAn iPhone screen depicting a key feature of the solution.
iPhone frameAn iPhone screen depicting a key feature of the solution.
Virtual sessions

Accessible recovery schedules

Patients can commit to their recovery plan at home or wherever they like with little to no equipment. They can complete their session within the time it would take to travel to the centre, while receiving support through short instructional videos as well as the option to submit any difficulties. This allows the service to work around them, and not the other way around.

The physiotherapist categorises exercises by Warmup, Session and Cooldown. I drew from the framework of popular fitness apps such as Gymshark, Trucoach and Marchon; these flows are widely recognised and familiar, adding to the ease of use.

Take a peek

I'm proud of my Figma files; I keep my layers, components and styles super tidy for designers and developers to get stuck in.

View project

Get hands-on

Explore the interactive prototype and navigate all of the important functions and user journeys outlined in this case study.

Open prototype

Explore my FigJam flows

Check out the user flow charts that form the journeys outlined in this project.

Open FigJam

Lessons

Learned how to design for iOS/Android

As my first published app, I had an immense learning curve in designing for iOS/Android compared to web. From structuring the nav to displaying modals, I learned about some key differences between native apps and websites that will be vital for future work.

Discovered new tricks in information hierarchy

Prioritising the most important functions and journeys as well as navigating how to display health data, goals, documents, workouts etc was a rewarding challenge, which I feel resulted in a well-balanced and powerful fitness platform.

Reflections

Be less precious about the preferred approach

I can tend to love a technique before exploring the full potential of alternate options early on; I learned to appreciate the fact that the favourite isn't necessarily the most effective.

Post-launch testing could propagate improvements and raise potential

User feedback and engagement insights are vital to a product's evolution and longevity, and unfortunately my involvement with the client ended at the app's launch due to resource and budget constraints. I would have loved to discover how the app was received and how it could improve.

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