Solution:
Health Now is a mobile app that connects people experiencing homelessness in Seattle to Health Now mobile clinics as well as other resources and services available to them. Health Now mobile clinics provide free, basic healthcare as well as making referrals to follow-up and specialized care.

Hypothesizing that there has been a grant from the city of Seattle to provide free healthcare to those experiencing homelessness, Health Now is a healthcare system that has been designed to simplify the process of finding and receiving care. The full scope of the project included designing and branding Health Now and its mobile clinics, creating a prototype of the mobile app and the on-boarding process, and producing an ad campaign to promote this new service.

This project was a collaborative effort between two of my peers, Ekran Jibril and Andrew Magnussen, and myself. My role included research, branding and visual design, UX design, wireframing and prototyping.

After forming our team, the key questions we looked to answer were:

-What are the major problems that those experiencing homelessness in Seattle are facing? And how do these problems further complicate their access to healthcare?

-What is the hierarchy of needs that must be met in our users?

-What is the most effective way to meet these needs and create a system that provides long-term solutions?

-How can we reach the greatest number of potential users and inform them about this program?

Next, we worked together as a team to create an empathy map. This was an important step in the process because it allowed us to really think about the experiences of our potential users and to assess their greatest needs. Designing from a place of empathy let us more accurately define the needs of our users and how to address them. One of the greatest takeaways for me was coming to understand how something as seemingly simple as having a place to keep one's belongings could prove to be a major barrier for a person experiencing homelessness who is trying to access healthcare. We knew that this was a a problem that we would need to solve for. 

Based on our research, we learned about the complexity and the sheer number of problems faced by those experiencing homelessness who are in need of healthcare. We also learned that the majority of those experiencing homelessness today have access to smartphones. We defined a hierarchy of needs to outline the needs of our users that pertain to their interactions with Health Now and the order in which they must be met. We did this by individually writing down on sticky notes and putting in order what we believed were the greatest needs, then coming together as a team to compile them.  

Then we compiled a list of the major problems and created solutions in direct response to each one.

Identified problems:

-Poor health can cause homelessness and homelessness can lead to poor health

-A lack of awareness of available resources and services

-Fragmented information systems and gaps in care

-A lack of early intervention and prevention services  

-Appointments are not available in a timely manner

-Appointments are not being kept

-Feelings of shame and fear of being judged

Proposed solutions:

-Free, accessible healthcare to those experiencing homelessness

-An intuitive mobile app that connects users to available resources and nearby services

-Health records that are stored in the cloud; no more papers

-5 mobile clinics in convenient locations throughout Seattle

-Options for both scheduled and walk-in appointments

-Provide lockers, bus vouchers and case workers to accompany patients to appointments, as well as reminders in the form of in-app messages and push notifications

-A welcoming, empathetic, non-judgmental ethos and the use of people-first language

Next we created three user personas with complex problems to help guide us in designing solutions for potential users. Our three personas cover different, major demographics amongst those experiencing homelessness in Seattle to give us a holistic view of the population we are serving.

Many different names were taken into consideration for our healthcare system, and we ultimately chose Health Now. We wanted the name to be clear and concise and to be immediately understood as a health-related service. We also felt that including “Now” in the name was a way to demand for healthcare as a basic right and a way to feel empowered by taking control of one’s own health.

We wanted Health Now’s branding to feel welcoming and non-threatening in order to help ease skepticism that many of those experiencing homelessness have towards government-funded programs. I created the logo and chose Comfortaa as the typeface  for its friendly, rounded letterforms and rounded strokes. The name in the logo is also stylized in lowercase to feel less formal and more welcoming. 

The color palette that I chose features two vibrant blues and a charcoal black. The vibrant blues were chosen because blue conveys trust and responsibility while the vibrancy of the specific blues that were chosen are both eye-catching and easily recognizable.

I started by sketching wireframes on paper for the on-boarding process and the home screens of the app. I then created digital wireframes, which were ultimately turned into a prototype. 

We designed the Health Now mobile clinic to be as easy to access as possible in order to best serve the greatest number of users. We split the city of Seattle into five zones that would each be serviced by its own mobile clinic. The locations of the mobile clinics would be along bus routes and either close to or at the same location as another service such as a food pantry or shelter. The clinic would offer appointment-only hours in the morning and walk-in hours in the afternoon and evening and be open everyday from 7 AM to 8 PM to accommodate different types of schedules. 

The mobile clinic would be run out of a bus or a large RV, and the physical space of the mobile clinic would also include a waiting area. This covered, heated area would offer seats, free wifi and chargers, in addition to lockers to store belongings in and a pet zone with kennels. 

We needed a strong ad campaign to promote Health Now and its mobile app in order to reach as many potential users as possible. We created several different touch points including face-to-face interactions through a program called Ambassadors on Bikes. This program would involve volunteers biking through the city pulling a bike trailer and making stops at locations frequented by those experiencing homelessness such as parks, libraries, shelters, bus stops and food banks. Their trailers would be full of care packages to be handed out to people experiencing homelessness and would include a flier with information about Health Now. Other facets of the campaign include advertisements on buses and in free publications, posters and signs in public spaces, and laminated fliers that could be placed under the windshields of RVs. 

Customer Journey Map:
Finally, we mapped out the customer journey, including the five stages of Awareness, Consideration, Engagement, Treatment and Loyalty, as well as the steps, touch points, and thoughts and feelings pertaining to each stage. Creating the customer journey map allowed us to consider all the aspects of how a user would interact with Health Now, from first becoming aware that such a healthcare system exists and is available to them to becoming a brand ambassador that shares their positive experiences with others and spreads the word about Health Now.