A mobile APP designed to help women with PCOS manage their condition and feel in control of their bodies.
Ova
My role
UIUX Design
Type of work
Solo project
Tool
Figma, Illutrator
Duration
2 Months
PCOS is a hormonal disorder that affects 12% of women worldwide, primarily those of childbearing age. Despite its prevalence, it is not well-known and often misdiagnosed. Understanding and managing PCOS can be challenging, as symptoms can be painful, uncomfortable, and even carry cultural stigmas. To effectively manage their condition and improve their overall quality of life, it is crucial for women with PCOS to prioritize their physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
Problem
Ova is a healthcare application designed to assist women with PCOS in managing their condition. The app provides users with various tools, including symptom tracking, knowledge resources, reports management, and a peer support community, to empower them to take control of their health and improve their well-being.
Solution
Onboarding
With the user-friendly interface and advanced features, you can easily manage your symptom, access medical records, communicate with peers and gain more knowledge. Stay healthy and connected with our app. Let's begin your journey towards optimal well-being!
Track your journey
It allows users to track their daily symptoms and medications and also add new ones. Keeping a record of these will help them be aware of the changes happening in their body and also help them discuss with their doctors.
Store your reports
Users can upload all of their medical and test reports and prescriptions and have access to them anywhere and everywhere. It doesn't matter if you are at your doctor's office or at a pharmacy, just open the app and access the required test result.
Community support
Connect with peers to have emotional support, and inspire each other. Finding a peer prevents loneliness and allows you to gain inspiration from the experience of others. There are group chat for each symptom where you can share your experience and answer questions.
Education yourself
Whether newly diagnosed or already suffering from PCOS, women with PCOS read information about PCOS management from the Internet or readily available blogs or articles. Our PCOS information page gives them access to expert-verified articles on varied PCOS topics.
Primary research
In order to have a better understanding of the journey of how women manage their symptoms. Digital ethnography and in-depth interviews have been used to find their pain point and unmet need.
Online Ethnography
6 in-depth interviews with women with PCOS
4 + in-depth interviews with experts
“There is an increased risk of mental health problems alongside physical health problems, but women often do not reveal this and health professionals do not constantly ask."
Jean, Social media influencer
“The doctor just told me to lose weight, but it was easier said than done. I felt devastated when I went to the gym every week and didn't miss any classes, but still couldn't lose weight."
Susan, living with PCOS for 10 years
“Many women ask me about the supplements available on the market. But the fact is that none of these is supported by any form of research and therefore cannot be prescribed.”
Dr. Alexander, GP
“Make more easier to access information about PCOS, because I feel like a lot of people don't understand and there's lots of different information that you can find some of it's conflicting."
Aileen, living with PCOS for 2 years
Key findings
01
Women with PCOS are often advised to change their diet, lose weight and lifestyle, but it is difficult to follow in their daily lives because they are not supported.
02
Body is changing all the time, sometimes women with PCOS forget to record their changes in their life, so their doctors only have a limited understanding of their condition when it comes to discussion.
03
Some women with PCOS don't take it seriously or ignore it when they are young. But the sooner they start making changes in their lives, the better it may be for their health in the future.
User Journey map
Combining similar patterns of women with PCOS found in previous research and interviews, I also created a user journey map in order to better understand and empathise with the problems and difficulties they face in their daily lives.
Synthesising insights
After taking notes and documenting observations, I put down insights and then grouped them to find overlaps. Also mapped out which point of the process the pain points lie and gave me an idea about the significant pain points in their PCOS management.
Symptom management and goal achievement 🎯
Women struggling with PCOS want to find an appropriate way to manage their symptoms and achieve their goals.
Lack of support 😞
They will soon feel frustrated and overwhelmed as there is so much misleading information online and a lack of support from public clinics.
Bridge the gap between doctors and patient 👩⚕️
The lack of research and support on PCOS and the difficulty of knowing the small changes in their bodies make it difficult for doctors to understand their condition, so they only advise them to lose weight.
Peer support matters 🎗️
Due to stigma, they'd like to discuss it with peers. Help them connect with people suffering from PCOS, which can release their anxiety and make them feel less isolated.
Persona
As the next step, I created two personas based on the insights gained from the interview.
How might we
provide accessible healthcare to women who are struggling with PCOS to boost their confidence in their management and feel more in control of their bodies.
Competitive Analysis
I conducted a thorough analysis of three existing PCOS applications (AskPCOS, everyPCOSbody and PCOS Tracker) to understand their objectives, overall strategy, market advantage. I performed SWOT analysis for each competitor to better understand their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Design opportunities & Goals
Based on the data from the interviews and the analysis of competing products, I came up with design opportunities and goals.
Ideation
Brainstorming
After brainstorming, I found four solutions to solve user's problems which are track their data, sync their reports, education, and support community.
Entering the design phase, I kept in mind everything I had collected so far - personas, their pain points, and the user flows. I started visualizing stuff by roughly sketching out concepts.
Prototype
Information architecture
This test aimed to assess the usability of new users interacting with the application for the first time. Three participants experienced the entire user journey using the Figma prototype.
Usability Tests
1. To determine if participants understood what the app is about quickly and easily and the value it provides.
2. To observe how users navigate and find information from the home page and see whether they can successfully find what they are looking for.
3. The four main features of the application were tested in the study by asking users to complete small tasks associated with each feature.
Test objective
2 major changes from usability test
1. A clearer focus on tracking
The calendar provides a clear way to mark the day when symptom tracking begins.
In addition, individuals can tailor their symptom-tracking plan by selecting which symptoms they want to monitor.
Before
After
2. Differentiate the group and posting messages
To enhance user experience, adding a search bar that allows users to search for related posts and groups. Also name each group for easier identification
Before
After
Final Outcome
The impact
By providing the app as a service, we can improve the health and well-being of women with PCOS. This service will address their unique needs, empowering them to manage their condition and prioritise self-care actively.
It will help them learn about their health, make informed choices, track their symptoms, and receive personalised support. Ultimately, we aim to improve health outcomes and encourage women to take charge of their well-being and advocate for themselves.
By addressing the specific healthcare needs of women with PCOS, the app promotes gender equality in the healthcare system. It highlights the importance of tailored healthcare services for women and supports the notion that women's health deserves equal attention, research, and resources.
The future plan
Design is an iterative process and there is always a new need or requirement or a problem that can be solved as we continue to learn about our users and how they use our app. The next stage of the application will involve the following solutions based on some of the feedback from the user testing which was not high priority and hence not implemented in the last iteration.
Problem: Users forget to track symptoms/ medications/ weight etc. sometimes.
Proposed Solution: By adding a customizable notification or reminder option for users, we can help them remember to track their parameters so that they do not miss tracking important health information.
Problem: Users need easy access to doctors to instantly resolve their queries regarding PCOS.
Proposed Solution: By adding a doctor’s portal, we can allow users to filter and select the doctors per their needs. The portal will allow for direct messaging and video calling to the selected doctor so that users can have their questions answered.
Problem: Users find it tedious to enter hormone levels in the tracker and would like to automate this task.
Proposed Solution: By providing the users an option to sync their medical reports to extract hormone information, users will not have to manually enter the hormone levels since they will be automatically extracted from the synced, uploaded report.