LKArchive Overhaul
In 2021 we redesigned the UI of ELLKAY's flagship LKArchive app and added a dashboard screen. This helped modernize it by 20 years, making it more intuitive, bright, and iPad-ready.
In 2021 we redesigned the UI of ELLKAY's flagship LKArchive app and added a dashboard screen. This helped modernize it by 20 years, making it more intuitive, bright, and iPad-ready.
In late 2021 I began the process of updating the UI for ELLKAY's flagship LKArchive software app. It is ELLKAY's most popular and successful program, and was the ideal place to start the process of visually updating and modernizing their software image.
The initial analysis and user feedback revealed that LKArchive's UI, while functional, felt a bit dated. Users found it challenging to navigate through the system efficiently, and it was hard for them to grasp key insights at a glance, with each medical measurement on its own page.
Recognizing these pain points, my team set out to:
1. Modernize the interface to be more responsive and iPad-friendly
2. Add a dashboard for tracking all the most common metrics
3. Build a design system to improve consistency, and later build out to adapt for other software products.
1. Wireframes
2. High-fidelity XD prototype
3. Design system to carry into other software products
1. Product Manager
2. Lead Interface Designer - Product
3. Head of Engineering
1. Design System
2. UX/UI Design
3. Oversee Implementation
With insights gathered from our internal teams and users, we defined three core design principles to guide our redesign process:
Simplicity: Streamline the user journey, making it more intuitive and reducing cognitive load.
Clarity: Enhance the visibility of key information and actions, ensuring users can easily find what they need.
Visual Appeal: Create a modern, aesthetically pleasing interface that aligns with contemporary design trends.
The first step was to declutter the interface. We reorganized menus, information layouts, and simplified navigation, ensuring that users could access the most frequently used features with minimal clicks. A cleaner layout reduced visual noise and improved the overall readability of the system.
Next, I designed a visual dashboard based on the most commonly used metrics, a central hub providing users with real-time insights into their data, while also adding data visualization such as charts and graphs for quick assessment of trends. Key metrics, trends, and alerts were displayed prominently, enabling users to quickly identify areas that required attention.
I also pitched the ability for users to create custom dashboard tabs, allowing them to track metrics for specific ailments or problems. Speaking with the engineers, this turned out to be an easy lift, and would give users the ability to surface less common metrics that might be specific to a patient or sickness (such as blood sugar).
I looked at the usage data coming in from LKArchive, which showed:
1. Users spent an average of 9 minutes per session using LKArchive
2. They spent that time clicking from page to page looking for data
The first thing I did was consult with ELLKAY's sales and support teams, to get a sense of what the product needed to be, and what feedback we were getting from users about some of LKArchive's strengths and weaknesses.
I also looked at comparable software from similar and competing companies to get a sense of how they surfaced data.
Finally, I reached out to our users - initially via survey, then I interviewed 11 of those respondents - as well as non-users to get a sense of how they use archive software, or, if they don't use any, why not?
Identify the biggest pain points among clients related to current LKArchive software, and ways we could best implement actionable fixes for common problems. To do this, I sent surveys to existing users, following up with 11 interviews. Then I interviewed three doctors who didn't use LKArchive to get some background on EMRs generally.
The biggest pain points were being unable to quickly navigate the software on iPad, and having to dig through screens to find relevant patient data - especially when tracking a multiple problems over time. Customer success reported that being able to use the software on iPad was number one on physicians' wish list.
I also discovered during research that when physicians are looking at trends on the dashboard, the line of the line graph was more valuable than the numbers themselves (which they could access by expanding the tile), especially when looking at large date ranges, so we made the graphs more noticeable and scannable, and downplayed individual data points for the most part.
Build a new design system and pattern library that would lay the foundation not only for modernizing the style, but also supporting mobile interactions on iPad. It validated our idea to add a dashboard to LKArchive (later to other products) for physicians and medical admins to get a quick overview of patient history and trends, with the ability to track multiple problems on discrete dashboards.
Desktop-focused navigation
Dated interface
Hard to track by problem
Data scattered
Too many pages
Unintuitive
iPad / Mobile ready
Quick access to data
Trend graphs
Updated style
Easier search and navigation
Feed relevant data and trends to patient dashboard that shows up immediately on search
Advanced search function allowing physicians to search by several common metrics
Allow physicians to create dashboard tabs for each problem to track specific or less common metrics in dedicated views
After searching for a patient using the new advanced search, the user is now taken to an intuitive patient dashboard that surfaces relevant data and trends. Once there, the physician can dive deeper into the data, or create custom dashboards for any specific problems they're tracking.
We built low-fidelity prototypes in Adobe XD to find the right balance of information to display, what could be left accessible via the sidebar menu, and how to map out the custom tab creation flow.
What information was most urgent and actionable?
Allergies (100%)
Medications (96%)
Immunizations (92%)
Weight (84%)
What is the best solution for representing trends visually on the dashboard?
Up to 6 graph panels, with solid line graphs for quick scanning
What is the best way to organize tabs vs. menu for other data screens?
Up to 5 tabs, organized like patient files, with a sidebar for quick access to other data
Learned the best way to lay out patient information, search fields, tabs, data structure.
Tested user flows with random internal employees, and a few physicians.
Discovered the most intuitive way to implement custom tabs to track specific patient ailments.
At the same time as we were researching user flows and brainstorming features, I was building a design system for ELLKAY software for the first time, so we were designing elements for this tool at the same time we were formalizing and optimizing flows throughout the software.
Larger buttons and menu objects for mobile/iPad usability
Colorful, visual graphs to display trends at a glance
Robust, nested sidebar menu for quick access to important patient data
Advanced search fields along the top so physicians can find any patient in their system
Consistent, modernized color and iconography throughout the application
Custom tabs for tracking specific problems that physicians can modify on their own
Throughout the design process I kept in contact with the local product management team, as well as the engineering team in India to ensure that my designs were executed according to the prototypes and my technical notation, and testing each individual interaction to make sure it had the desired effect.
Once there was a working prototype in staging, we connected the software to our in-house dummy data, to make sure it was being sorted and displayed accurately, and brought in half a dozen physicians to go through user flow testing. We especially wanted to make sure the custom problem tabs were intuitive to create and use.
Able to go live quickly with the redesign after testing, and added the new Dashboard shortly after. Compared to previous LKArchive usage data, physicians spent less time in the app (5 minutes per session avg vs. 9 minutes per session prior) overall, and 40% of that was in the new dashboard.
Adobe XD
Balsamiq
MS Clarity
Illustrator
Photoshop
Figma
MS Office