Headzup App
Headzup helps teens prevent and cope with recurring headaches. A mobile app entering field trial in the spring of 2016, Headzup is created in partnership with UCLA headache clinic and funded though a NIH Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant.
The challenge
Design a mobile app that will help teens manage their headache pain by presenting tailored prevention and intervention strategies. Include a “gamification” component to encourage daily use of the prevention strategies and daily headache tracker when the teen is not in pain.
Sample: planning & resultsFocus groups
In order to better understand user needs, I conducted a focus group with teens. I planned the 90 minute in-person sessions, wrote the discussion plan, and acted as moderator. A focus group allowed spontaneous discussion and reactions to using a mobile app to manage their headaches.
Discussion focused on their mobile device usage, games and media they enjoy, and what effect (if any) their headaches have on their device usage. I then organized the data and presented to business stakeholders, internal team members and external UCLA partners. This data was used as groundwork for the design phase.
Brainstorming and sketching
With a clearer picture of user needs, I led a two day brainstorming session that included design, a writer, a project manager, key project stakeholders and development team. We simplified the scope and more clearly defined each feature of the app.
Working closely with the front-end designer/developer in brainstorming meetings, I created high-level user flows that I presented to stakeholders. These user flows gave the team a more concrete vision of what we were building, informed content writing and proof of concept development work.
High-level user flow examplePrototyping & usability testing
I created a wireframe prototype in Axure that was used for usability testing. I tested the prototype with eight users over one week.
I wrote the usability test script and conducted remote testing of the Axure prototype during a one hour phone call. The teens used my prototype on their mobile device through a product called Zoom that allows iOS devices to share their mobile screen with their computer.
After testing, I organized the data and presented recommendations to stakeholders and other team members.
Usability findings presentation sample
Final app is still in progress…
The development is still ongoing
and is scheduled for completion in spring 2016.
