Summary
Imagine wearing a heart monitor, day and night, but never knowing if it’s actually working. Imagine experiencing symptoms but having no easy way to track what’s happening - let alone share it with your doctor.
My challenge? Designing an intuitive mobile app that gives patients control over their heart health - with real-time insights, symptom tracking, and personalised feedback.
The result? A seamless experience that bridges the gap between patient, doctor, and device.
Challenge - Designing an intuitive mobile App for patients
Afi is a compact, wearable heart monitor designed to help detect arrhythmias and other heart conditions. While Afi itself is a powerful medical device, there was a missing piece: a seamless and engaging way for patients to interact with their data.
The challenge was to design a mobile app that:
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Gives patients real-time insights into their heart health.
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Allows them to track symptoms and activities to provide context for their cardiologists.
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Provides clear instructions to improve the use of Afi.
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Helps patients understand their condition and feel in control.
Research - Gathering user needs
1. Learning from patients
To gain insights on patients thoughts and behaviour, they wore Afi for a week and recorded their experiences in a diary. Afterwards they joined in a co-creative workshop.
Key findings:
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Patients were unsure whether Afi was recording - (later, we discovered no data was collected!).
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Battery status was unclear, causing frustration.
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Adhesive patches didn’t last as long as expected, leading to incorrect placements.
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Patients felt anxious about their condition and wanted more educational content (e.g., "How can I prevent symptoms?" "What are others' experiences?").
User testing
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Heart patients wearing Afi.
2. Understanding what's important to the doctors
Through interviews with cardiologists, it was identified what was the most valuable patient data for them.
Key findings:
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Symptom tracking is crucial: What symptoms occurred? When? How intense?
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Activity tracking helps doctors find triggers: Were patients exercising? Sleeping? Stressed?
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Having contextual data alongside heart rate measurements improves diagnosis.
Results - A mobile App that empowers patients
With these insights, I designed a health-tracking app that integrates Afi’s data while providing a user-friendly experience for patients.
Afi Mobile App
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Final designs
Core features:
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Home Screen – A daily overview of heart rate, detected symptoms, and battery status.
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Timeline – View past days and identify trends over time (days/weeks/months).
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Symptom Logging – Patients can easily add symptoms, rating severity and duration.
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Activity Tracking – Log activities like exercise, sleep, and patch replacement to provide context for heart rate changes.
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Learning Platform – Educational content on heart conditions, prevention tips, and inspiring patient stories.
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Instructions & FAQ – Clear guidance on patch placement, charging, and device maintenance.
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Feedback System – Smart pop-up reminders for charging, patch replacement, and symptom logging.
The result? An app that empowers patients to take control of their heart health while providing valuable data for doctors to improve diagnosis and treatment.
© Joep van de Klundert 2024
+31 6 1777 20 70
joepvandeklundert@gmail.com