Adapting and Evolving
The second iteration of the tool was adapted for the iPad and required a complete redesign and build of the front end. I was especially hands-on with this phase of the project. We no longer had the assistance of the agency and were also required to add new data into the tool. My focus was user experience and performance, collaborating closely with development I researched JavaScript libraries that could be performant within an HTML wrapper on the iPad, eventually suggesting GSAP. In early tests I could demonstrate complex animations running ‘buttery smooth’ on the device. I iterated the design and we trialled various data forms with the client.
A new set of data focusing on response over time needed to be added, this was provided to us as XLS data tables. These contained hundreds of time-based records across hundreds of patients, and it was a daunting task to take in-house and suggest ways to visualise the data. First I needed to comprehend the implication of the figures and I had a few workshop sessions with the head of statistics and their team on the client side. I learned that an individual's response could swing far from the mean, with some patients improving sharply and others barely moving, and that the average quietly concealed just how much variation sat underneath it. The purpose of the work was to make that spread legible, so it could be interrogated patient by patient, looking for patterns in the data. After these sessions we settled on a heatmap to visualise response across the duration of the study. This method would be easy to scan across many patients, and also provided a way to navigate into individual patient records and examine them in isolation. The concept of the heatmap needed to be mocked up and adapted to the established style within the tool. I iterated on this and eventually settled on rows of bubbles that expand with the magnitude of response.
Other work included new visualisations of patient demographics, help and tutorial screens for self-service, along with a rebrand for the new version on the iPad, alongside an updated version for conference video walls. Although the project was very challenging, at times tense and complex, the outcomes were very well received and garnered some fantastic feedback from the client and beyond.
