Spectrum

Spectrum is a grassroots, non-profit organization that strives to empower patients to take agency over their sexual health by providing them with the information they need to feel confident in their search for care. This project was created as part of a capstone project for the course INF 2191: Representing UX at the University of Toronto with teammates Lala Sondjaja, Trista Yang, Ivan Lou, and Regina Yang.

Skills demonstrated: User research, persona building, user journey mapping | Tools used: Figma

Challenge:

As a newer organization, Spectrum does not currently have a tangible product or service to offer and would like our team to design what will become the foundational aspect/feature of their platform; an online directory of sexual health and wellness resources that enables users to choose the kinds of help they need and will feel comfortable receiving. 

Solution:

Build a medium fidelity clickable prototype that follows a user’s journey as they complete their task of finding a suitable practitioner/resource, while making use of the directory’s filters, and exploring the different kinds of care listed. This prototype can be used by Spectrum to show future investors and/or developers.

User Research:

We began our research process by conducting surveys with 33 participants. Out of these participants, 9 consented to follow-up interviews, which were conducted in a semi-structured style.

The survey and interview questions aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of who our participants were, how they perceived their sexual health, what tools they used to seek sexual health-related information, and where they currently go to seek sexual health care.

Data Analysis:

From our survey data, we found that…

  • Online resources were most frequented (76%) when seeking sexual health information and care

  • The top three factors considered most important when choosing a sexual health provider were payment/insurance policies (76%), the specific services/specialties provided (72%), and the provider’s gender (60%)

  • The majority of participants (36%) had never received sexual health care however, for the participants that had received care, STI/STD testing (32%) and reproductive healthcare (32%) were the most popular reasons

Interview data was organized into an affinity diagram (right) wherein participant quotes were categorized into common themes/findings.

From our survey and interview data, we were able to distill three main takeaways:

  1. Patients face obstacles in locating trustworthy sexual health & wellness resources

  2. Patients have very specific personal preferences for practitioners

  3. Online resources are widely accessed for sexual health information but are perceived as potentially unreliable

Building a Persona:

Based on our findings above, we created a persona that was also representative of our research participant demographics.

Data points from our affinity diagram were used to populate our empathy map. Patricia is feeling pain when urinating, so she Googles her symptoms. She’s unsure about what kinds of online information she can trust, so she decides to visit a walk-in clinic. However, her experience isn’t ideal…

Mapping an ‘As-is’ Journey:

We summarized our research findings into an as-is user journey, including opportunities for Spectrum to address pain points within the current sexual health help-seeking journey.

Designing the Lo-Fi Prototype:

Formative User Testing:

Once completing the prototype, usability tests were conducted with 10 representative users.

Data collected from the tests were distilled into an affinity board outlining issues that needed to be addressed. These issues were then rated based on severity and were addressed before creating the final medium-fidelity prototype.

According to the pain points and opportunities outlined in our As-is map, we designed a prototype of the Spectrum website. Our goal was to create an accessible and dependable tool to allow people like Patricia to find the sexual health resources they need in a safe and dependable manner.

Building the Mid-Fi Prototype:

Our medium fidelity prototype addressed issues related to the usability of our onboarding questionnaire, the layout of the homepage, and the labels used for search result filters.

Et voici, le pièce de résistance:

Patricia’s New Journey with Spectrum

To culminate this project with Spectrum, a final user journey map was created. The To-be user map (below the As-is) includes screenshots from our prototype, integrating it as a digital touch point into our persona’s ideal help-seeking journey.