Design explorations
Background
Design Team at Practice Fusion has design exercises where designer can individually explore ways of improving small part or larger EHR design styles and system.
Challenge
While working on various design improvements and bug fixes based on user feedback, it was mentioned over and over again how users don't want to click on tabs and button to access content, they want to see more information in one screen without having to scroll and click. And some of the inverted text on the non-white background was really hard to see. Also, meaning and function of icons without text labels were misinterpreted. Even from a design perspective, inconsistency in displaying a certain type of data was problematic because design wants to maintain a sense of continuity from one area of the product to another, starting with something as simple as time/date format to how address forms are laid out.
Objective
To improve current UX paradigm and think beyond the current design framework. I chose to explore ways of solving following issues:
- Data density: using viewable screen area effectively so that user can scan and find content without having to scroll and click as little as possible
- Legibility: the content needs to be readable by variety of user types and hardware, color choices and typography need to maximize contrast
- Pattern consistency: Find the most space efficient to display dense block of information while being able to categorize and label the type of information that can fit into various context in workflow in EHR
Role: Visual Design
Practice Dashboard
Needs to serve as a starting point for an user to get a summary of the day such as patient appointments, to-do list, incoming messages and get an understanding of comparative data like how many patients seen compare to last year, as well as for the EHR system to announce new features and updates. Designed to keep legibility and scannability in mind, using list format so that users can quickly go through each items in predictable manner.
Patient List
To view a patient's charts, user may click directly on patient name or go to Charts section to view the list of patients. Shown here with smaller number of patients scheduled for that day or alternatively show all active patients or look up a patient from the search bar.
Patient Summary
This is the overview of the patient, where provider or nurse can quickly review clinical information on the left panel such as diagnosis, vitals history, current medications, as well as past visits. On the right sidebar keeps non-clinical information like past appointments and messages. User can add/edit info on the far right blue slide out panel. The left navigation bar collapses to allow more space so that user can focus on content and navigate through current screen more efficiently without distraction.