Project Overview
My Role
Skills Used
UIUX & Product Designer
UX Research, UI Design, Interaction Design, Prototyping, Usability Testing
Tools
Figma, Miro, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Zoom,
Duration
Platform
5 Months (May - Dec 2024)
Mobile App (iOS & Android)
CareLink
For Intuitive Colloboration and Co-ordination among Home Health Care Professional
Stay Compliant: One Portal
Digitalisted Documentation
Effective Decision making with
systematic approaches
Tackling Complexity with
effective Knowledge transfer
Project Summary
CareLink is a user-centered and participatory mobile application designed to improve collaboration among formal caregivers through digital log entries, real-time task tracking, and specialized social interaction spaces within the app.
This study focuses on relationship-centered interactions and user-friendly workflows to minimize care fragmentation and maximize patient safety and recovery outcomes.
The Core Problem Statement
Current home healthcare software prioritizes data compliance over nurse collaboration, forcing isolated field workers to rely on fragmented tools and paperwork—which ultimately causes critical information loss and risks patient safety.
01
The Technical Flaw (The Software Gap)
Existing platforms (EHRs/CDSS) are built with a rigid, top-down approach focused strictly on logging audits. Because they focus exclusively on clinical data entry, they completely ignore the human workflow of a mobile caregiver, leaving nurses operating in digital silos with no way to smoothly coordinate shift handovers.
02
The Operational Breakdown (The Impact)
Without a unified communication layer, caregivers resort to disjointed paper notes, text messages, and quick phone calls during shift changes. This reliance on informal channels triggers severe information decay, creates extreme cognitive fatigue from redundant forms, and directly compromises patient recovery timelines.
The Solution
“CareLink” — a unified communication platform built specifically for home healthcare that shifts the focus from rigid compliance to seamless nurse collaboration.
Built for the mobile workflow of community caregivers, CareLink integrates Conversation Analysis (CA) and clinical storytelling to replace digital silos with intuitive pathways for real-time shift handovers.
By centralizing communication, it completely eliminates disjointed paper notes, texts, and phone calls—drastically reducing cognitive load while ensuring maximum patient safety.
Project Goals & Strategic Impact Metrics
The engineering of this experience was aimed at establishing a cohesive, relationship-driven
ecosystem:
01
Minimize Cognitive Burden
Streamlining high models to reduce
data repetition and friction during high-stress
field visits.
02
Mitigate Workplace Isolation
Cultivating a transparent peer-to-peer
network to build organizational trust and professional alignment.
03
Optimize Patient Safety
Securing real-time clinical synchronization to drive handover and transition errors down to absolute zero.
The Research Execution Pipeline
1.
Methodology: 10 Qualitative, semi-structured individual deep-dive interviews.
2.
Environment: Conducted, recorded, and transcribed remotely via Zoom to respect the participants' limited availability.
3.
Sampling Protocol: Voluntarily recruited through established healthcare agency referral networks and active nursing WhatsApp communication threads. No financial incentives were offered.
4.
Demographic Breakdown: 6 Public-sector agency nurses and 4 Private-sector agency nurses. 100% full-time female HCR professionals.
5.
Experience Baseline: Career lengths ranging from 5 months to 15 years, establishing a highly reliable average background of 10 years of professional nursing.
6.
Session Boundaries: Interviews ran between 24 and 41 minutes, averaging roughly 30 minutes per session. Transcripts underwent manual thematic coding.
Thematic Analysis & Qualitative Data
Theme 01
Relations-Perception
Building trust and high professional confidence.
"I feel more confident in my work when I know I can trust my fellow nurses. If I know they've got things handled and are on the same page, it makes me feel secure and supported. That trust lets us work seamlessly together and provide the best care for our patients."
Theme 03
Technique Knowledge Transfer
Establishing a shared clinical routine.
"If one of my fellow nurses explains to me a new way to help the patient with their exercises, I can incorporate that into our routine throughout the day. By working together and sharing techniques, we can really speed up the patient's recovery."
Theme 05
Organisational Factors
Fragmented split systems and defensive "box-thinking."
"I don't understand why everything is all split up? We usually leave messages on the phone for the next nurse, but sometimes they don't have all the info leading to misunderstandings. Emails are not exactly our go-to. We mostly use them for sending special stuff like photos or documents.... It's a bit of a hassle and a time waster. There's always the risk they'll get lost in the mix and you don't receive feedback.... long time for response."
Theme 02
System Security Breakdown
Destructive absence of collaboration practices.
"There were quite a few instances where collaboration was practically nonexistent. It's like we're all on different pages, if that's always the case, we need a feeling of security. We need to know that we have a good prescription and action plan. If we do not have that, then it does not work."
Theme 04
Information Sharing & Specialty Identity
Defining and validating professional role identity.
"Whenever a colleague shares a different approach or clinical technique, I try to learn from it and apply it in my own practice. Exchanging knowledge and experiences helps us grow as professionals and ultimately leads to better care for our patients."
Theme 06
Lack of Internal Support & Staff Well-being
Limited internal support for nurses' emotional well-being.
"It feels like everything we do is centered around the patient's needs, which is important, but what about us? If I have a concern or need advice about my own well-being or work stress, there's no real support system for that. We talk a lot about advocating for our patients, but who's advocating for the nurses?"
User Persona: Anne Marie
Mapping the caregiver's daily routine, operational blockers, and design opportunities into a structured behavioral archetype.
Bio & About
Anne Marie is a dedicated community nurse with 10 years of professional experience. She operates in a "Complex Adaptive System" where she travels alone to patients' homes across rotating shifts. She is technically competent but extremely time-poor.
Full Name: Anne Marie
Age: 34 - 45 Years (Average)
Role: Caregiver
Location: Ireland
Environment: Dynamic field visits, rotating team members, structural isolation.
Goals
-
Clear, centralized communication channels.
-
Timely sharing of real-time patient logs.
-
Consistent and standardized nursing procedures.
-
Smooth coordination across changing team shifts.
-
Instant visibility of all medical data.
Needs
-
Uniform & reliable patient care experience.
-
Structured, clean organization of field data.
-
Feeling backed and supported by the agency.
-
Meaningful and satisfying clinical workflows.
-
Strong collaborative relationships with coworkers
Task
-
Documenting and reporting live patient status curves.
-
Creating, updating, and auditing care plans.
-
Regularly checking and verifying active care completion.
Opportunities
-
Deploying a unified mobile communication tool.
-
Automated read and update feedback confirmations.
-
Interactive social zones for team relationship building.
-
Virtual, automated routine checklists and trackers.
Observations
-
Severe lack of consistent coordination.
-
Disjointed patient care tracking across split channels.
-
Unclear active points of contact during visits.
-
Feeling overwhelmed by chaotic and unpredictable tasks.
-
Heavy daily information and data overload.
Barriers & Frustrations
-
Split applications cause constant data repetition.
-
Intense time constraints and short follow-up limits.
-
Conflicting communication threads and mixed messages.
-
Slow responses to urgent field issues leaving users unsupported.
-
Total lack of feedback making users feel ignored.
Design Process
Building a healthcare app means designing for users who are already exhausted and under high pressure. To replace their slow, paper-based workflow, we followed a standard 4-stage UX process focused on one main goal is to save time.
By turning real interview insights into quick-action wireframes and testing them directly with nurses, we didn't just build a digital version of a form—we created an intuitive tool that removes daily navigation bottlenecks, reduces screen time, and lets healthcare workers focus on patients instead of paperwork.
1. DISCOVER
-
Conducted User Research to find nurse shift fatigue.
-
Performed Competitive Analysis to spot market gaps.
-
Interviewed target users to understand their needs.
2. DEFINE
-
Created User Personas for target healthcare staff.
-
Defined the Problem Statement around navigation bottlenecks.
-
Mapped the Information Architecture for clean data structure.
3. DESIGN
-
Made quick Wireframes to map screen layouts.
-
Built a Design System with reusable UI components.
-
Created the final High-Fidelity UI on Figma.
4. DELIVER & TEST
-
Built a clickable Prototype to test user flows.
-
Conducted Usability Testing with 5 real users.
-
Completed development with clean design files.
Testing and Iteration
To see if our design could survive a chaotic hospital shift, we tested it with 15 frontline users in two swift stages. Grounded in Nielsen Norman Group principles, we stripped away every micro-friction to turn heavy workflows into effortless, fast actions.
1. Low-Fi Stage (10 Users) • A/B Testing
Following Norman Nielsen's A/B testing frameworks, we evaluated our initial low-fidelity concepts. This phase was critical for making foundational design choices, most notably validating our major pivot from a paper-based workflow to a fully digital design.
2. Hi-Fi Stage (5 Users) • Usability Testing
Using the Usability Testing 101 protocol, we tested our high-fidelity prototypes with an additional 5 participants. This stage focused purely on optimization—refining micro-interactions, maximizing data-logging speed, and drastically reducing cognitive load for caregivers during busy shifts.
Low- Fidelity Wireframe
Hi- Fidelity Wireframe
Before vs. After
The Problem: Multi-Step Logging
In my early low-fidelity wireframes, logging a patient update followed a traditional, multi-step layout. However, during user testing, nurses completely rejected this approach. They highlighted that tapping through multiple nested menus while actively managing hands-on patient care was distracting, frustrating, and entirely impractical in a high-stress clinical environment.
​Home Screen
Search Patient
Open Profile
Locate Observations Tab
Open Form
Save Log.
The Solution: 1-Tap Global Care Log
To eliminate this friction, I completely stripped away the deep menu structure. Instead, I designed and integrated a permanent, floating "Global Care Log Button" directly into the center of the main bottom navigation bar. Caregivers can now tap this persistent button from any screen or context within the app to instantly trigger a log form. This single design pivot successfully transformed a slow, multi-step workflow into a clean, seamless 1-tap action.
Global Care Log Button
Select Care Category
Immediate Entry
Final Design Changes
To see if our design could survive a chaotic hospital shift, we tested it with 15 frontline users in two swift stages. Grounded in Nielsen Norman Group principles, we stripped away every micro-friction to turn heavy workflows into effortless, fast actions.
Streamlined Digitalised Documentation
Replaced fragmented, overwhelming administrative tasks with concise categories and well-organized templates. This minimizes complexity, reduces human error, and prevents users from feeling overwhelmed.
Centralized Client Page
Created a single source of truth allowing nurses to access critical patient information with just a few clicks before generating reports, significantly driving up operational efficiency.
Real-Time Status Visibility
Integrated instant mobile notifications for critical incidents and live status updates in the Care Office, offering complete operational visibility and peace of mind to the care team.
In-App Community Feed
Introduced a dedicated communication channel that bridges formal caregivers. This feature supports both personal and professional peer development, improving team synergy.
Usability Testing & Constraints
Because home care nurses work strict, busy shifts, traditional in-person lab testing was impossible. The evaluation was conducted remotely using functional Figma prototypes, Maze quantitative analytics, and recorded Zoom screen-shares with 5 target users.
Honest Review of Testing Limitations
Prototype Environment Barriers:
Because home care nurses work strict, busy shifts, traditional in-person lab testing was impossible. The evaluation was conducted remotely using functional Figma prototypes, Maze quantitative analytics, and recorded Zoom screen-shares with 5 target users.
Technical Age Bias:
Asynchronous remote testing naturally skewed the user metrics toward younger, tech-native caregivers. This meant that veteran practitioners—who have deeper clinical expertise but lower comfort with mobile software—were underrepresented.
Real-World Distractions:
Testing during work breaks or at home introduced ambient noise and fatigue factors, which slightly altered metrics like "Average Task Completion Time."
The Key Advantage:
Testing remotely without an active moderator sitting in the room completely removed Observer Bias (The Hawthorne Effect). Caregivers gave completely honest, raw critiques regarding text sizing and layout choices.
Future Roadmap
To build upon the current findings and scale the CareLink ecosystem, the next phases of development will focus on three strategic pillars:
Collaborative Design (Refinement)
Collaborate with students from the Student INC initiative to iterate on the current UI/UX, incorporating feedback from the initial usability testing to refine navigation and eliminate technical barriers.
Ecosystem Expansion (Inclusivity)
Expand usability testing and user research beyond formal caregivers to include the broader healthcare ecosystem, such as General Practitioners (GPs), physiotherapists, pharmacists, family members.
Relationship-Centred Framework
Shift the product focus from just documentation to a proactive, preventive care model. This involves designing features that help multi-disciplinary teams intervene early in complex patient situations to prevent health deterioration.