EndoAsystent
The EndoAsystent app was developed in collaboration with the "Pokonać Endometriozę" foundation (pro bono). It is designed to monitor menstrual cycles and endometriosis symptoms. The goal of the project was to create a tailor-made application for patients suffering from endometriosis, allowing them to record all essential information in one place.
I worked as part of a three-member design team, continuously collaborating with developers. My responsibilities included taking meeting notes, planning next steps, UI design, and prototyping. We are currently in the pre-testing phase of our solution.
01
Initial Discovery Meeting
During our first meeting with the "Pokonać Endometriozę" foundation, we learned about an initial, preliminary version of the application. This version was a lo-fi presentation for stakeholders and was not based on user research.
In this meeting, we also identified the primary users of the application: the patients (direct users) and the doctors (indirect users, as they receive the data collected by the app). We also defined several key features that the application should include to meet the needs of these users — The main ones are: marking menstruation, recording the symptoms of endometriosis, and a summary for the doctor's review during the visit. During the following meeting, we established the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) features of the application.
02
Creating proto-personas
We prepared three proto-personas to understand patients at each disease progression stage.
Proto-Persona 1: No Symptoms/No Awareness: This user does not experience concerning symptoms or does not associate them with a specific condition. She doesn't feel anything is wrong and is interested in tracking her cycle, but does not prioritize identifying irregularities.
Proto-Persona 2: Diagnosis/Treatment: This user struggles with infertility and is being diagnosed with endometriosis, experiencing a.o. gastrointestinal symptoms.
Proto-Persona 3: Remission/Management: This user is aware of her condition and has been living with it for several years. She has adapted to her daily life realities, frequently consults her doctor, and strives to minimize symptoms.
For each proto-persona, we detailed their needs, desires, and symptoms. Our proto-personas later aligned with the results of patient interviews.
03
User Interviews and Card Sorting
In the next phase of our project, we prepared an interview script for patients, combined with a brief usability test of the previous version of the application. The main findings from these interviews highlighted a general problem with symptom categorization — an issue we had already been concerned about during our discussions with the foundation members. To address this, we conducted a follow-up study using card sorting to see how patients grouped symptoms. Most of them grouped them by system affected. An interesting observation from this study was that some patients categorized symptoms as “affects me” or “does not affect me.” To enhance clarity and usability, we decided to add a symptom search feature and the option for users to add their own symptoms.
04
UI Design
During the next meeting with the foundation, we presented lo-fi screens, a moodboard, and UI inspirations. We received positive feedback, which allowed us to proceed with designing the first screens of the application. Meanwhile, we conducted an interview with a doctor specializing in endometriosis treatment to ensure the patient profile section was correctly prepared with the information the doctor needs during consultations.
In the later stages, after finalizing the app's interface design, we plan to conduct usability tests with patients suffering from endometriosis to further refine and validate our solution.