CASE STUDY
Launching Omhu Care
Launching Omhu Care
A world wide shortage of dermatologists
A world wide shortage of dermatologists
Skin conditions are among the most common medical issues, making up 30 percent of all primary care consultations. Patients in Denmark can wait up to 160 days to see a specialist, which can drastically impact their daily life and mental well-being. The Omhu app offers an alternative to the status quo—enabling anyone access to specialist care, a diagnosis and a treatment plan, from the comfort of their own home within 48 hours.
Building on several years of research and development within the Leo Innovation Lab, the Omhu team worked to define and design a minimum viable product (MVP) for launch within a timeframe of 6 months. We delivered a customer-facing app and an internal teledermatological web platform, used to facilitate remote consultations from our in-house medical team.
Skin conditions are among the most common medical issues, making up 30 percent of all primary care consultations. Patients in Denmark can wait up to 160 days to see a specialist, which can drastically impact their daily life and mental well-being. The Omhu app offers an alternative to the status quo—enabling anyone access to specialist care, a diagnosis and a treatment plan, from the comfort of their own home within 48 hours.
Building on several years of research and development within the Leo Innovation Lab, the Omhu team worked to define and design a minimum viable product (MVP) for launch within a timeframe of 6 months. We delivered a customer-facing app and an internal teledermatological web platform, used to facilitate remote consultations from our in-house medical team.
Skin conditions are among the most common medical issues, making up 30 percent of all primary care consultations. Patients in Denmark can wait up to 160 days to see a specialist, which can drastically impact their daily life and mental well-being. The Omhu app offers an alternative to the status quo—enabling anyone access to specialist care, a diagnosis and a treatment plan, from the comfort of their own home within 48 hours.
Building on several years of research and development within the Leo Innovation Lab, the Omhu team worked to define and design a minimum viable product (MVP) for launch within a timeframe of 6 months. We delivered a customer-facing app and an internal teledermatological web platform used to facilitate remote consultations from our in-house medical team.
Skin conditions are among the most common medical issues, making up 30 percent of all primary care consultations. Patients in Denmark can wait up to 160 days to see a specialist, which can drastically impact their daily life and mental well-being. The Omhu app offers an alternative to the status quo—enabling anyone access to specialist care, a diagnosis and a treatment plan, from the comfort of their own home within 48 hours.
Building on several years of research and development within the Leo Innovation Lab, the Omhu team worked to define and design a minimum viable product (MVP) for launch within a timeframe of 6 months. We delivered a customer-facing app and an internal teledermatological web platform used to facilitate remote consultations from our in-house medical team.
MY ROLE
Lead designer
YEAR
2020/2021
BACKGROUND
I led the design of the customer-facing product Omhu Care across iOS and Android and coordinated closely with designers on our internal teledermatology web platform. I worked alongside a content writer, product managers, a product researcher and our mobile dev team.
Project goals
Become the leading tele dermatology app in denmark (later several european markets)
Become the leading tele dermatology app in denmark (later several european markets)
Leverage AI technology to 'Scale doctors' and decrease patient wait-time to consult
Create a digital health consultation that meets rigorous scientific standards
Create a digital health consultation that meets rigorous scientific standards
Prioritize building a trustful product experience across all touch-points
Prioritize building a trustful product experience across all touch-points
Design for native mobile and lay the foundation of a design system from the get go
Research methods
Research methods
Design sprints and workshops with medical and data experts
User interviews (qualitative) and surveys (quantitative)
Information architecture and align technical contraints
Protoyping and usability testing with user group
Market research + consumer analysis, competitive landscape
Discovery + Research
Discovery + Research
Starting with ‘Camilla’
Starting with ‘Camilla’
Starting with ‘Camilla’
With the product mission defined, we began to lay the foundations of the customer experience. As a starting point, we needed to understand who we were building this product for at a high level. Based on prior business insights and market research we began by centring around our first proto-persona ‘Camilla’ (aptly named after the most common name of babies born 1986-1996 in Denmark).
I set out to facilitate an aligned understanding of our target audience amongst our cross-functional app team. Using different frameworks to tease out a shared understanding of the context surrounding her problems, needs and pain points that our future product hoped to solve.
I prepared activities for team workshops, these exercises were intended to spark discussion, generate ideas and ultimately align on what features were most important to prioritise and build to best meet this audience's expectations.
approach
Building our MVP for scale
We set out on an ambitious path and followed the guiding principle of ‘scaling doctors’ by leveraging digital technologies, such as Machine Learning. This meant that when designing the medical questionnaire we worked very closely with our machine learning and medical team to ensure the content and UI were both built to enable a medically sound and accurate diagnosis, as well as to collect non-biased and structured data.
Below: A snapshot of an early iteration of the product flow chart, information arc.
We went through several iterations before landing on what we believed was the foundation for a trustful and scientifically rigorous digital health consultation. An MVP experience we could develop within our limited timeframe but with the potential to continue improving after launch, as our understanding of our customers grew.
We went through several iterations before landing on what we believed was the foundation for a trustful and scientifically rigorous digital health consultation. An MVP experience we could develop within our limited timeframe but with the potential to continue improving after launch, as our understanding of our customers grew.
validating
Testing early and often
Proto-personas can help shape the initial direction but speaking to users is where the real enlightening magic happens. Early on, before we’d developed all coded infrastructure, we set up user testing to ’fake’ our full service and get early feedback on the overall consultation experience.
Below: an example of one such test plan.
User feedback
Key focus
How are users solving their health care issues at present?
What are our future patient's needs and unmet needs within the current healthcare system (physical and online)?
What expectations does our user have regarding a digital consultation?
How was the experience of a digital questionaire and consultation, what is missing, and what can be improved?
What are the challenges or barriers for our future customers in adopting this app in the management of their skin conditions?
Usability and interaction testing in low-fi.
How are users solving their health care issues at present?
What are our future patient's needs and unmet needs within the current healthcare system (physical and online)?
What expectations does our user have regarding a digital consultation?
How was the experience of a digital questionaire and consultation, what is missing, and what can be improved?
What are the challenges or barriers for our future customers in adopting this app in the management of their skin conditions?
Usability and interaction testing in low-fi.
How are users solving their health care issues at present?
What are our future patient's needs and unmet needs within the current healthcare system (physical and online)?
What expectations does our user have regarding a digital consultation?
How was the experience of a digital questionaire and consultation, what is missing, and what can be improved?
What are the challenges or barriers for our future customers in adopting this app in the management of their skin conditions?
Usability and interaction testing in low-fi.
How are users solving their health care issues at present?
What are our future patient's needs and unmet needs within the current healthcare system (physical and online)?
What expectations does our user have regarding a digital consultation?
How was the experience of a digital questionaire and consultation, what is missing, and what can be improved?
What are the challenges or barriers for our future customers in adopting this app in the management of their skin conditions?
Usability and interaction testing in low-fi.
ai INTEGRATION
Nudging with ML models to encourage better quality photos
Good quality photos were an absolute must-have for our dermatologists. The lab had historically worked to develop diagnostic classification models, capable of identifying skin conditions from smartphone images and we wanted to continue exploring this long-term goal within the product.
Together with a Machine learning lead and a fellow product designer, I organized a cross-functional 4-day design sprint with two important goals:
1) How to incorporate our ML models within the camera capture flow to encourage our customers to take and send high-quality photographs of their skin condition.
2) To look into the near future and define our product road map for the development of an AI-assisted camera capture.
Below: A visual snapshot of some of our processes, prototypes, testing sessions from the sprint.
Good quality photos were an absolute must-have for our dermatologists. The lab had historically worked to develop diagnostic classification models, capable of identifying skin conditions from smartphone images and we wanted to continue exploring this long-term goal within the product.
Together with a Machine learning lead and a fellow product designer, I organized a cross-functional 4-day design sprint with two important goals:
1) How to incorporate our ML models within the camera capture flow to encourage our customers to take and send high-quality photographs of their skin condition.
2) To look into the near future and define our product road map for the development of an AI-assisted camera capture.
Below: A visual snapshot of some of our processes, prototypes, testing sessions from the sprint.
System + documentation
Designing native and utilising design systems
Designing native and utilising design systems
Designing native and utilising design systems
Omhu Care was built in Android based on guidelines from Material Design and on iOS utilising SwiftUI, guided by Apple’s HIG. Informed by the lovely work from a branding designer, care was taken to translate these visual guidelines into our interface while tweaking and testing for accessibility.
Components were designed to be reused within different places and contexts within the UI and flexibility was a key design principle. As the company was in a time of rapid change and have learnt from prior experiences we prioritised design documentation from the outset.
Omhu Care was built in Android based on guidelines from Material Design and on iOS utilising SwiftUI, guided by Apple’s HIG. Informed by the lovely work from a branding designer, care was taken to translate these visual guidelines into our interface while tweaking and testing for accessibility.
Components were designed to be reused within different places and contexts within the UI and flexibility was a key design principle. As the company was in a time of rapid change and have learnt from prior experiences we prioritised design documentation from the outset.
outcome
Omhu goes live in denmark
Omhu goes live in denmark
Omhu goes live in denmark
Since the launch in early 2021, Omhu users have received a skin consultation within 48 hours and the majority within 24 hours, that's in comparison to the 160+ days waiting time through the health care system in Denmark.
Omhu Care was recently acquired by Meadable Inc, and was live on the appstore until May 2022.
outcome
Reflections
The experts at the heart of the process
The minimum in minimum viable product needs some consideration when designing a user journey that involves delivering potentially high-stakes patient communication about subjects like diagnosis. Add automation and asynchronicity into the mix, and you could have the potential for a very disappointing user experience.
With this in mind, we included our dermatologists at every stage of the design process, ensuring tight collaboration in research, design and all patient communication. Omhu HCPs are passionate about the field of dermatology and care deeply about their patients, they can help us communicate difficult topics in a way that can ease the burden on patients.
The experts at the heart of the process
The minimum in minimum viable product needs some consideration when designing a user journey that involves delivering potentially high-stakes patient communication about subjects like diagnosis. Add automation and asynchronicity into the mix, and you could have the potential for a very disappointing user experience.
With this in mind, we included our dermatologists at every stage of the design process, ensuring tight collaboration in research, design and all patient communication. Omhu HCPs are passionate about the field of dermatology and care deeply about their patients, they can help us communicate difficult topics in a way that can ease the burden on patients.
credits
credits
All the 
, kudos and hi-fives to the omhu team:
Research + Product: Mélanie Bourlioux
Design buddy: Per Lyhne Løkkegaard
PO: Adrian Young-San Roessler
Content + TOV: Josephine M.S. Wiesener
and the best devs in the biz: Matt, Ehsan, Johan, Tørk, Henrik, Kevin and more...
Medical super team: Andrei, Ionela + more
Machine L spinal tap team: Malena, Raluca, Frederik and more...
All the , kudos and hi-fives to the omhu product team:
Mélanie Bourlioux
Per Lyhne Løkkegaard
Adrian Young-San Roessler
Josephine M.S. Wiesener
and the best dev team: Matt, Ehsan, Johan, Tørk, Henrik and more...