MedSafeDiet

Building a personalised medicine-informed, prescription and nutrition app for comprehensive interaction detection to enhance personal well-being and healthcare outcomes.

CLIENT

MedSafeDiet

Founder- Oliver Britten

The Challenge

ROLE

User Research

UX & UI Design

2 weeks

Medications can interact with other medications as well as with the foods we eat and supplements we take. These interactions can have adverse and potentially serious effects.

Medications can have interactions with a range of factors which can lead to lack of efficiency and potentially have adverse dangerous effects. People often don’t know about these interactions and struggle with misinformation.

What is MedSafeDiet?

TEAM

Michael Palfreeman

Alexandra Camp
Julia Briere
Morgan Ager
Tamara Zipporah

DURATION

MedSafeDiet is a digital platform designed to integrate medically informed prescription and nutrition information, empowering individuals through educational resources. By emphasizing the significance of personalized nutrition—often underutilized—MedSafeDiet seeks to develop effective solutions that inspire users to take charge of their health and advocate for themselves. A key focus of the platform is addressing medication interactions, as many existing online tools and websites are not user-friendly and primarily cater to clinicians rather than individuals seeking personal health management.

Some key features the stakeholder, Oliver, wanted included int he product.

Competitor Analysis

Following our discussion with the founder, we analyzed the competitors he mentioned, including WebMD and Drugs.com. We found that these platforms offer an overwhelming user experience, presenting complex information and extensive lists of potential interactions with varying severity levels. Additionally, BNF is primarily tailored for clinicians. In contrast, MyFitnessPal and Cronometer focus heavily on nutrition with detailed daily tracking features. This research highlighted the need for a more user-friendly solution that simplifies access to essential information.

User Research

Now that we have a background on what the market is like, we switched our focus to gathering quantitative and qualitative research data via 1-1 interviews and sent out a survey.

Some key insights from our survey included:

  • 55% take over the counter medication and supplements, indicating the risk for unknown interactions.

  • 89% said they would be comfortable with digital platforms to manage medication

  • 45% take 3 or more different medications

We conducted 22 interviews from which we gathered over 200 data points to understand donation behaviors, focusing on why people donate, willingness to donate, reaching new supporters, successful campaigns, and emerging technologies

  • The view that given the complexity of medical issues it means many would have concerns about using an app for something about medication. There were some definite questions and hesitancies around accuracy and misinformation.

  • A clear feeling is prevalent that wait times for accessing healthcare and accessing the information they need can be very difficult. People often found information around medication contradictary and many even found their GP doesn’t give any information at all about their medication when it’s prescribed.

  • A majority of the 55+ population are conscious of their diets influence with their medication. Many show interest in more access and support to information on this and are motivated to take more action in managing their diet and health in consideration to their medication intake.

  • Digital users main health apps include the NHS App, Fitbit, Myfitness Pal, Youtube and their main means of finding out information is from Google, although they often find this conflicting.

    Analogue users use calendars, journals or dossette boxes as their main methods to manage medication currently.

  • The majority of participants view their medical information as something they share with partners, family members, or close friends. This is often for them to have as a secondary reminder or a safety precaution.

Who we’re designing for

After conducting our research and validating our insights from our discussion with the founder we created three personas from our research to see which path we user we would be able to best design for in the time frame of the project.

  • Jillian

    Digitally savvy but frustrated elsewhere

    Jillian is a 55 years old photographer, who likes to travel and be active. She lives in London with her husband and their two cats

    Paint Points:

    Long NHS wait times

    Conflicting information

    Lacks personalised advice.

  • Susan

    Analogue but wants to go digital

    Susanne is a 65 year old teacher who takes medications and supplements for heart issues. She cares for her ill husband and seeks guidance from their GP.

    Paint Points:

    Overwhelmed by medical information

    Lacks confidence with digital devices

    Unclear guidance from GP

  • Doreen

    Analogue and stuck in their ways

    Doreen is 85 years old and retired. She is regularly visited by her two sons as she struggles with arthiritus

    Pain points:

    Frustrated with new technology

    Difficulty in getting GP appointments

    Forgets prescription names.

At this stage of the project, our team split up to work on individual solutions for the remainder, each selecting a specific persona to focus on for the design solution. I chose to focus on an analog user who is open to digital solutions, which I found to be the most significant to work on based on the research.

Problem Statements

As an analogue user responsible for the medication and dietary needs of others, alongside my own, I have no means to manage these in one place.

As an analogue user aware of the risk of interactions occurring I struggle to access clear information about how my diet actually affects my medication.

User Stories

I focused on identifying key user needs and motivations, allowing me to translate each problem into actionable, user-centered stories to guide the design process.

As a user managing multiple profiles, I want to have all interaction data integrated into a single, user-friendly place, so that I can easily access and monitor all this information.

As an analogue user concerned about medication interactions, I clear information on how ingredients in my meals may interact with my medication, so that I can adjust my diet to avoid potential risks.

Building User Journeys

Building on the insights from my research, I recognized that while users can input or update their medications, the differing variable in the process occurs with dietary choices. I focused on enabling users to effortlessly scan recipes and food items against their saved medication profiles. Given the short nature of this project, I focused on one flow from the aspect of recipe tracking.

Final Designs

Design Solutions Summarised

In the MedSafeDiet project, I crafted a design solution aimed at bridging medically informed prescriptions with nutrition information through an educational digital platform. This approach aligned with the business concept, emphasizing user needs for simplicity and minimizing overwhelm. My design prioritized a straightforward, user-friendly interface that delivers digestible information, reducing the risk of user frustration.

A clear, simple indication of potential interactions without information overwhelm, whilst providing optional detailed interaction information

Easy diet scanning function allowing users to make meal choices easily

Incorporating a recipe-saving feature and creating a recipe log based on the founder’s vision on this and to support user engagement and personalization

Access to multiple profiles on one account for those in charge of partners and family members medications or diet