Blud- Blood donation mobile app
- UX Design
- Research
- Prototyping
This mobile app works in such a way that It is strictly for donors. Donors can simply register and choose when and where they want to donate their blood. This idea was brought to life because of the limited blood supply in Africa which was a serious problem I felt the need to solve. Various features were integrated into this mobile application.
Roles & Responsibilities
User Research: Competitive Analysis, User Interviews, Persona Mapping, Journey Mapping, Empathy Maps.
UX Design: Sketches, Wireframing, Prototyping, Usability Testing.
Project Context
Duration: 4 Weeks
Personal Sponsored Project
Tools Used
Figma
Miro
Google Sheets
As the supply of blood has been limited in Africa for quite an age, I decided to find solutions to this problem. Blud mobile app can help in bridging the gap of limited blood supply by connecting donors to their nearby blood banks. With thismethod Blood donation will be seamless.
Problem
Without the proper enlightenment on Blood donation, its importance and risks, bridging the gap of limited blood supply in africa can be difficult. People are left with no hope to live when they need blood transfusion for themselves, their friends and family. But it doesn't have to be this when technology can help.
Goal
To create a smartphone application that will assist donors in donating their blood to the blood banks around them, scheduling appointments with the blood banks, learning about the importance of blood donation and also incentivizing the donors.
Solution
Donating Blood
- Allows Donors to be able to donate their blood after filling their personal information like genotype, blood group e.t.c.
- Gives Students the option to choose how often they want to be notified about the details of how their blood was used e.g recipient hospital details
- Gives users incentives after achieving each milestone on the mobile app, so they can feel appreciated.
Tracker feature
- Allows users to track the available blood banks around them.
- Users are able to see the estimated time and distance from their current location to any of their preferred blood banks.
- Users also get notified of how their blood pints were used e.g which hospital it went, pseudonymous information of the recipient.
In app learning/ Push notifications
- Users get to learn about blood donation, its risks and its importance while using the mobile app through blog posts, unskipped-short videos e.t.c
- Users get notified frequently about their blood donation appointments or when there’s a new blood bank around them.
Doctor chat/Appointment bookings
- Allows users choose from varieties of doctors.
- Users are able to chat with them and also book appointments if they need a physical visitation.
- Users can also schedule appointments with blood banks on when and where they want to donate their blood e.g either visiting a blood drive around your community or visiting the blood bank directly.
My approach
Research
User segmentation
There was just one main group; which was:
- The Donors (youths who are medically eligible)
Focus
I focused on the youths because it was more scalable to enlighten the mass about blood donation through them. The youths are at the center of the population. It would be more scalable for them to educate the older and younger generation..
User Interviews
I primarily conducted qualitative and quantitative research with 20 students and 10 Medical practioners in Lagos state through online surveys. I ensured the target audience was people who have experience with blood donation so I could have emphathy with the users and know the problem can be defined. Interacting with the leads got me familiar with them, I got to know their pain points, problems and how I can solve them. Here is the link to top answers to questions that were asked; User Interview Answers
I gathered a lot of user pain points, demands, goals, emotions, and concerns, but I'll share some of the highlights with you here so you can get a better sense of my design thinking and process journey.
Pain points
Wrong perspective on blood donation.
People are not enlightened about blood donation enough for them to understand its importance.
Donors do not know where and how to donate blood.
People don’t know where to go when they feel the need to donate their blood. They don’t really know about blood banks.
Superstitions and Taboos donors believe in
Superstitions and Taboos donors believe in.
Lack of appreciation
Users don’t feel appreciated/ important even after donating their blood.
Competitive Analysis
This competitive analysis gives me key insights into the attributes, features, flows, and emotional reactions elicited by my competitors' design solutions. You can purposefully construct your solution to make a better quality product and/or experience by understanding these aspects of competitors' products.
User Persona
Journey Maps
The personas and empathy maps helped us outline an hierarchical task analysis, which we then used to make a journey map highlighting the pain points and the opportunities for improvement.
Design
After sketching different iterations, designing the low fidelity to mid fidelity prototypes and doing a mini usability session. Thankfully, the app was going to serve its purpose. Then, I advanced to the high fidelity prototypes.
Style Guide
Splash and Onboarding screens
The Onboarding screens introduce the users to the Blud app, It basically summarizes the whole application in three screens. From the first carousel that tells users they can donate blood to showing them they don’t need to fret as they can see the nearby blood banks with the mobile app. And lastly the users see that they get instant notifications so they don’t miss out on any updates. These screens are important because they get the users excited before they actually use the app. They get that excitement to use the Blud app.
Registration screens
The first screen is where users input their personal email address and password to have a quick sign up. Then for existing usrs who can tap login to to go to the login screens for users to have access to their accounts. The next screen is where userss verify their email address to ensure that credibility. Then we have the login screen and the error screen incase there’s an error with the input of the OTP(One time password)
Mobile Dashboard
This is the mobile dashboard where users can perform quick actions on their account. Starting from the complimentary personalised greeting ‘Hi Fisayo’. It makes the users feel important and happy.
On the blue card is the donation count of the users which shows this user has donated 3 pints so far. Users can also perform the quick action which is Donate Blood. Users also get to see their achievements and milestones.
There’s also a weekly blog post that educates users about blood donation, its importance and its risks.
An additional feature is the emergency requests from nearby blood banks where it shows the users their blood group type is needed urgently.
Donating Blood processes
Picking a preferred blood bank → Scheduling appointment- choosing date, time and adding notes/comments. → A success message for the users
In learning screens
Weekly read on Blood donation articles→ Short practical videos on blood donation by medical experts → Finding doctors, getting familiar with the FAQs and joining the community to meet similar minds.
Navigation screens
Appointment screen→ Notification screen → Communication screen → Find your doctor
Profile screens
My profile screen→ Edit profile screen → Settings screen
Evaluation
To evaluate this prototype, I conducted a moderated remote usability study with 10 participants spanning across University students from different regions in the country. This was followed by a qualitatitve survey that asked participants to describe their thought process while performing the tasks.
Here’s a brief of the process;
- Explain the concept behind the app to the users.
- Ask them to perform benchmark tasks one by one.
- Prompt for feedback after each task regarding what went well, what did not.
- Analyse testing findings to find patterns within data.
- Iterate designs based on new insights.
Usability Study
Location : Lagos, Nigeria
Participants: 5 (3 Students and 2 Medical Doctors)
Duration: 5 minutes
Usability Study Table
Patterns Identified
- It was observed that majority liked the navigation path flow. As It saves their time, It also makes the app mobile friendly.
- It was also observed that Users wanted to be able to cancel their blood requests incase of unintentional mistakes.
- Users also liked the idea of hourly notifications, and the practitioners endorsed it because people tend to forget things a lot.
- Other things users talked about were of personal interests; Dark mode theme, calm colors e.t.c Which would be considered along the building process.
Insights
After Identifying the suggested patterns by our users , the following insights were achieved for further itineary processes;
- A cancel option was then added after a user finishes his/her appointment bookings. That will lead them back to the home page.
- A light mode theme was used because of the nature of the sector, being a medical app, interface had to be calm and clean.
- Due to one of the users suggestions, the home page was re-oriented , so users can the breathing space on the page
- A save option for serial numbers was also added, users will get to save their booking details as pictures on their as to not forget it.
We gathered a mostly positive response to the prototype. Participants were able to perform the benchmark tasks with ease, and the survey allowed us to obtain qualitative data about user's thoughts while using the app. Here are a few highlights from the results:
85%
Users believe the Blud app will be a useful means for donating their blood to blood banks.
70%
Users believe the Blud app’s blog posts and videos would help them improve their knowledge about blood donation.
100%
Users believe the tracking feature would navigate them properly to the nearby blood banks.
Take-aways
- Importance of UX in every project: Taking the user research, usability study made me realise there’s no good UI without UX. A great product is fetched from a brilliant User experience.
- Enlightenment: Users need to be enlightened and informed of new developments in their surroundings. For example 60% of users that were interviewed did not know where to go if they needed to donate or request for blood.
- Satisfaction: I feel satisfied and happy that I was able to solve this problem, It was evident in the usability study how the users were applauding the project. They felt the change. This mobile application can bridge the gap of limited blood supply in Africa.
Thank you
