GuardianVets
Getting Started
GuardianVets was founded January 2017 by John Dillion, with the vision of becoming the leader in veterinary telehealth. The idea behind GuardainVets came when John experienced a string of unnecessary and expensive emergency veterinarian visits. If a pet owner has a question or concern over their pet’s health after their veterinary clinic has closed, they may be directed to an emergency clinic who will tell them “come in”, or use their own judgment as to whether the issue was an emergency or not. If John had been able to speak with someone at his regular veterinary clinic—to talk through his concerns—he could have saved time, money, and received peace-of-mind over his pet’s health. With this personal experience in hand, John set out to solve a problem: The veterinary industry had no way to serve non-emergent clients after-hours.
The solution was a B2B veterinary teleheath triage service. GuardianVets’ clients were veterinary practices throughout the United States and the service allowed veterinary practices to offer veterinary support to their clients for free. When a pet owner called their practice, the call was directed to GuardianVets' after-hours triage—a team of veterinary technicians and a veterinarian who helped pet owners determine if their concern was emergent or not. If it was an emergency, the pet owner was referred to an ER. If the concern wasn’t an emergency, the caller was scheduled for an appointment next business day. The call was recorded, call information was sent to the veterinary practices, and analytics were provided to assess the return on investment for the service, which included:
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New appointments generated
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New clients acquired
Beyond providing increased revenue to veterinary practices, GuardianVets gave veterinarians much needed downtime and offered piece-of-mind to pet owners—extremely beneficial intangibles.
In the past year, GuardianVets had seen exponential growth, with a desire to grow even faster.
Client
GuardianVets
Duration
3 weeks
Role on Project
UX Designer on a 3 person team
Skills Demonstrated
User research & strategy
Wireframing
Prototyping
Concept testing
Usability testing
Working with stakeholders
GuardianVets' growth over the previous 10 months
However, GuardianVets’ system was hampering further growth. My team was brought in to identify and fix key problems so that the company could quickly scale. At our first meeting with John he gave us a high level overview of the internal system which had 26 screens, narrowed down to four views, with three distinct categories of users: admin (i.e., John), veterinary practice clients, and internal GuardianVets staff.
Admin dashboard view
GuardianVets staff dashboard view
Veterinary practice view
GuardianVets staff call intake view
With the help of John we identified a number of problems that needed to be worked through:
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Aspects of the service were not scalable (e.g., excel spreadsheets and documents)
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The call intake form had issues
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Data was “the elephant in the room”
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Subjective satisfaction with the service was anecdotal
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Veterinary practices didn’t have a clear sense of ROI (i.e., appointments and income generated)
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The overall system needed to be more intelligent
John perceived everything as a priority. However, given our time constraints and the magnitude of the product, we pushed him to prioritize. After some initial resistance, he gave us a priority lists.
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Client dashboards
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Staff view, including dashboards
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Admin dashboards
In only one hour, we developed a much clearer vision of what GuardianVets needed from us. Regardless, things were still a bit muddy. We dove head first into research to help us gain our footing.
John's wants and needs:
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Automated dashboards in the admin, staff, and veterinary practice views
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A central location for all calls and the ability to look back on case histories
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Integration with veterinary practice medical records
Research
The Plan
We developed a research plan with the goal of getting everyone on the same page as to how we would validate client assumptions, team assumptions, and empathize with different users of the system.
GuardianVets Assumptions
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GuardianVets’ competitors were lackluster and were focused on B2C, while the best strategy was B2B
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Pet owners were very satisfied with GuardianVets’ service
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Veterinary practices valued pet owners having the ability to talk to a person rather than googling and deciding on their own
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Pet owners valued talking to a person
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Veterinary practices needed a dashboard
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Practice owners and managers valued ROI data
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The main user of the practice view would be the clinic receptionist
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The main user of the reported data would be the practice manager/owner
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Practices wanted a customer satisfaction metric
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There was an issue with the call intake form disappearing
Research Objectives
Research Objectives
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Investigate broad domains related to GuardianVets' industry and service
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Investigate the competitive landscape
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Determine veterinary practice goals, motivations, wants, needs, behaviors, frustrations, and pain points
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Determine what data the veterinary practices wanted
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Determine GuardianVets' staff goals, motivations, wants, needs, behaviors, frustrations, and pain points
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Investigate the desirability of different future directions for GuardianVets
Team Assumptions
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The call experience for GuardianVets’ staff was inefficient and subject to human error
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The data was difficult to aggregate and information could have been getting lost
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The practices struggled to figure out who they needed to schedule for an appointment
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The practices didn’t have a clear understanding of how many calls came in and how many appointments were generated from the calls
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Access to medical records would be difficult-to-impossible; most were not electronic
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There would be times when veterinary telehealth regulations were violated
In order to meet our research objectives we conducted domain research, competitive analysis, and user interviews with GuardianVets’ veterinary practice clients (i.e., vet practice managers, owners, and receptionists).
Domain Research
Given my pre-existing knowledge on regulations and telehealth practice in nursing and medicine, I took the lead on diving into domain research. My teamed hoped to broadly understand three domains because we thought it would help us better understand GuardianVets’ product and service.
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Veterinarian telehealth basics
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AI and medical advice
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Veterinary medical records
1. Veterinarian Telehealth Basics
According to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), an association representing more than 91,000 veterinarians, telehealth is “the overarching term that encompasses all uses of technology to deliver health information, education, or care remotely. Telehealth can be divided into categories based on who is involved in the communication.”
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Teleadvice and teletriage: Nonclient, no Veterinarian-Client-Patient Relationship (VCPR). Teleadvice and teletriage is, ”the provision of any health information, opinion, guidance or recommendation concerning prudent future actions that are not specific to a particular patient's health, illness, or injury. This is general advice that is not intended to diagnose, prognose, treat, correct, change, alleviate, or prevent animal disease, illness, pain, deformity, defect, injury, or other physical, dental, or mental conditions.”
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Telemedicine: Client, with a VCPR, with the exception for advice given in an emergency situation until a patient can be seen by, or transported to, a veterinarian. Telemedicine uses a tool to exchange medical information electronically from one site to another to improve a patient's clinical health status.
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Teleconsulting: a general practice veterinarian uses telehealth tools to communicate with a veterinary specialist to gain insights and advice on the care of a patient.
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Telecommunication/Telesupervision: Used with healthcare teams.
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Telemonitoring: Remote monitoring of patients who are not at the same location as the healthcare provider.
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e-prescription/e-VFD: Communication to a pharmacy or medicated feed distributor.
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mHealth or mobile health: Use of mobile devices; some mHealth applications and wearables are designed to augment animal healthcare within VCPR, while others are designed and marketed directly to consumers.
VCPR Requirements
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The veterinarian has assumed responsibility for making clinical judgments, the client has agreed to follow the instructions
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The veterinarian has sufficient knowledge of the patient to make a preliminary diagnosis
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The veterinarian is readily available for follow-up
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The veterinarian provides oversight of treatment, compliance, and outcomes
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Patient records are maintained
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Exception: advice given in an emergency situation until a patient can be seen by a veterinarian
In cases where there is no established VCPR, the veterinarian may provide general telehealth advice but must not diagnose or treat patients. Any advice given should be general and not specific to an individual animal, diagnosis, or treatment.
2. AI and Medical Advice
Amazon’s Alexa can answer basic health-related queries that could save individuals a trip to the doctor’s office. Alexa exceeds 10,000 different skills and its use as a medical decision advice intelligence will continue to grow and improve.
3. Veterinary Medical Records
Electronic Veterinarian Medical Records (EVMR) include:
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Scheduling
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Automating client reminders
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Recording medical and surgical information
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Billing
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Providing cost estimates
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Reviewing veterinarian performance
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Marketing
A study of EVMR adoption in 82 veterinary practices in Massachusetts found:
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17% used EVMRs only
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20% used paper records only
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63% used both EVMR and paper
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48% of small practices (i.e., 1 or 2 veterinarians) used paper records only
Indicating that any attempt to integrate with EVMRs would be a challenge.
Competitive Analysis
By conducting a competitive analysis we hoped to identify companies that were in the veterinary telehealth space, information on their existing solutions, and GuardianVets’ competitive advantage in the marketplace. The competitive analysis included telemedicine platforms, pet owner helplines, crowdsourced opinions, and 24-hour teletriage.
Telemedicine
Platforms
Telemedicine
Platforms
Helplines
Helplines
Crowdsourced
Crowdsourced
24-hour teletriage
Teletriage was the space GuardianVets operated in. There were two primary competitors in the this space, Ask.vet and WhiskerDocs—both B2C services.
Ask.vet
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B2C focus
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Fee for service, monthly subscription, or on-demand
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Focused in teletriage (“virtual urgent care”)
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Text-focused platform with limited phone support
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Partners with veterinary practices, offering off-hours text support
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Retail affiliate program
WhiskerDocs
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B2C focus
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Fee for service, monthly/annual subscription, or on-demand
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General helpline and teletriage
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Partnerships with employers, insurance companies and retailers
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Focus on limiting veterinary visits altogether
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Leadership comes from call center background
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Dev and veterinary support teams
The competitive analysis revealed many different platforms that offered telehealth services; however, GuardianVets was the only B2B company, confirming John’s assumption that B2B was GuardianVets’ competitive advantage.
User Interviews
Interviews were the main method of diving into the experiences of GuardianVets’ staff (i.e., veterinary technicians and veterinarian, Katherine) and veterinary practice clients (i.e., receptionists, practice managers, clinic owners). We hoped to gain insights, information, and stories associated with a wide range of topics.
GuardianVets Veterinary Technician Staff
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What happened when they received a call
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Types of emergent and non-emergent calls
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Number and types of calls received per night and over the weekend
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Approximate percentage of calls that were directed to the ER, scheduled for appointments, or other types of calls
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Pain points/frustrations with the current system/service
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Information on the software currently used when taking calls
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Insights into the needs, wants, frustrations of the vet practices
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Software wants and needs
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Issues with the call intake form
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Perceptions on pet owner satisfaction with the service
GuardianVets Veterinarian Staff
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Call guidelines and standard practices
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Additional information on the current state of the product
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Experience with the system and any pain points
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Information on the relationships with the veterinary practices
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Information on the call/case review process
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Communication with the veterinary techicians
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Information on the intake form and the embedded decision tree
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How the value of the service is maximized given teletriage constraints
Veterinary Practices
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How and why they became a GuardianVets client
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Experience with the service and value the service provided to veterinarians and their patients
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What happened when they received call summaries and recommendations from GuardianVets
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Information that was essential to properly follow-up with a patient
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Percentage of calls that were from existing versus new patients
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Approximate number of calls that GuardianVets handled in terms of ER referrals and appointments generated
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Opening and closing duties for the front-desk/receptionist
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Feedback from their patients on the service
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Dashboard, data, and reporting wants and needs
Our client setup user interviews prior to the start of the project. Unfortunately, there was some miscommunication so we needed to do last minute scheduling of the staff and veterinary practices. GuardianVets had only three vet techs and one veterinarian on staff. John was also able to swing last minute veterinary practice interviews. We were hoping to speak with a few receptionists, however we ended up speaking with practice managers and clinic owners. When it was all said and done, we interviewed two GuardianVets veterinary technicians, one GuardianVets veterinarian, and three GuardianVets’ veterinary practice clients. All interviews were conducted remote.
GuardianVets Veterinary Technician Staff Insights
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Software issues
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Call intake forms disappeared and all data was lost when a new call came in
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It was often difficult to efficiently gather accurate information (e.g., there were many drop-down menus, the breed drop-down at 150+ options)
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Some of the staff were logged out of system after 10 minutes
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Form fields should be pre-populated when possible (e.g., the system should capture the caller’s number and pull-up their veterinary practice information)
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During a call the staff needed to reference a 25 page word document to find veterinary practice information (e.g., on-call schedule, opening hours, ER referrals)
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Workarounds
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Some staff were hand-writing notes during a call and entering the information into the system post-call, mostly because of the threat of losing a form if another call came in
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If a form was lost, staff would have to manually call the veterinary practice to regenerate a form
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Because of the workarounds staff stopped being detailed when completing forms
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Desire to help
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Staff wanted to use their experience and expertise to help pet owners
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Some staff continued working despite personal constraints
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“If I’m lucky I’ll fill out the form with a client, finish the call, and hit submit, I just haven’t been doing this because I’m afraid someone else will call and the form will disappear.”
- GuardianVets Staff
GuardianVets Veterinarian Staff Insights
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Katherine, the only veterinarian, served as a backup for the vet techs on questions or issues
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Reviewed all cases/calls
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Communicated via text, email, calls
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Other than John, was the only other touchpoint with the veterinary practices
“I would like the forms, and form review process, to be a lot easier to work with.”
- Katherine D., DVM
GuardianVets Veterinarian Staff Insights
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GuardianVets offered peace-of-mind for pet owners, and the practices love being able to provide this service to their customers
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Veterinarians loved the downtime
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The value that GuardianVets offered was hard to quantify
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Practices were trying to assess if the service was worth the cost (i.e., ROI)
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Practices wanted access to data and dashboards to assess ROI, and potentially drop the service if it wasn’t bringing in enough money
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Questions around number of appointments being generated from the service—possibly only a few a month, not covering the cost of the service
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A frustration was GuardianVets’ vet techs miscommunicating the practices’ on-calls hours, opening hours, and ER referrals
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Approximately 60% of calls were with new customers and there was some question as to the quality of these new customers (e.g., their ability to pay for veterinary services)
“Our customers love it. They can just pickup the phone and find out if it’s an emergency. They just like the fact that they are taking to a real person.”
- GuardianVets Client
Overall, there were five main points of concern that we gleaned from the interviews:
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The internal staff system needed major work, the call intake form had many problems and these problems trickled down to the veterinary practices
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The 25 page word document with veterinary practice information was not scalable and was the source of many errors
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Workarounds with the current system (e.g., handwriting notes) were not scalable
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Veterinary practices have data that GuardianVets would need to accurately provide ROI information (e.g., amount of money paid for new appointment generated)
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Data quality was suffering from weaknesses throughout the system
At this point, we weren’t at a shortage of problems that needed to be tackled. At the beginning of the project John gave us a priority list, which put the veterinary practices first; however, by the end of our user interviews everyone on the team was directing attention toward the call intake form. The form, along with the infrastructure around it, was a glaring problem that needed to be tackled ASAP.
Synthesis
Two Affinity Diagrams
After completing the domain research, competitive analysis, and user interviews we needed to pull everything together. We started by completing two affinity diagrams to synthesize interview themes from GuardianVets’ staff and veterinary practices. We synthesized the goals, motivations, needs/wants, frustrations/pain points, and facts across both interviewee groups.
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Our final affinity diagram which shows how we organized research themes into user goals, motivations, needs/wants, frustrations/pain points, and facts. Under each main category are subcategories.
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My team members discussing the veterinary practice affinity diagram and thinking about the user goals category.
GuardianVets Staff
Goals
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To be able to complete the intake form efficiently (i.e., before it disappears, and to fill it out quickly while talking to upset pet owners)
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To fill out the intake form as accurately as possible given constraints of the situation (i.e., accurate phone numbers, names, breed, etc.)
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To provide cautious and accurate information to pet owners (i.e., lean towards ER 60-70%, provide accurate clinic and referral information)
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To do follow-up case reviews efficiently
Motivations
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Helping pet owners and their pets
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To continuing working in their field despite personal restraints (e.g., health, & baby)
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Job flexibility
Needs/Wants
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Remove long drop-down menus (e.g., breed)
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Wanted free-form entry
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Wanted to see client outcomes
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Entering data into the form needed to be more efficient
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Needed the form to not disappear
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Maybe wanted a more formal protocol (external to the implicit aspects of the form)
Frustrations/Pain Points
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Software was a pain-in-the-ass (e.g., drop-down menus, disappearing form, clunky interface)
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Getting logged out of the system after about 10 minutes of inactivity
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Lack of information on system screen (e.g., info on the vet practices)
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Pet owner’s phone number did not automatically populate
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Setting up client quarterly meetings (Katherine)
Facts
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Things were just busy enough for 3 vet techs to cover, but headed toward a tipping point
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A lot fell on Katherine (she reviewed all cases)
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Texting and communication between the team was not scalable
Veterinary Practices
Goals
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To provide peace-of-mind to customers
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To provide after-hour services to customers
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To grow the practice (e.g., bring in new customers; have more appointments)
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To save money by not having to staff on nights or weekends
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To limit unnecessary off-hour calls
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To have personal time/time-off
Motivations
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Determine if GuardianVets was worth the cost (i.e., decide to keep or drop the service)
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The subjective value of GuardianVets from pet owner’s perspective
Needs/Wants
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A dashboard
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Ability to add/modify data (e.g., modify current customer field; add if appointment was set-up; add amount paid)
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To not lose potential customers
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Marketing support (e.g., pamphlets showcasing the value-add of their GuardianVets service; to be the only vet in the area with GuardianVets)
Frustrations/Pain Points
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Quality of new clients (e.g., not having money/not being able to pay)
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Inaccurate and inconsistent data (e.g., inaccurate names and/or phone numbers)
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Ability to analyze the value of the service
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Miscommunication of clinic operational details (e.g., open at 7:30am but the vet didn't come in until 9am; rotating weekends open)
Defining the Problem
Using the results from our research synthesis, we developed a problem statement. The purpose of the problem statement was to get everyone, my team and our client, on the same page as to the problem to solve moving forward. By now it was clear that we needed to focus our attention on the internal staff tool.
We developed design principles to help expand on our problem statement and to help guide our design decisions moving forward. Our design principles were: It's all there, what would Luke W do?, persistent, and not a bot.
It’s all there was chosen because in emergency call situations fast and accurate decisions need to be made. The vet techs should have all of the information they need to complete a call accessible in one screen. The current system did not have this, which led to errors and user frustration.
What would Luke W do? Was chosen because Luke Wroblewski is a UX/UI web form design expert. If there was a question to which form design was best, my team thought referencing Luke’s work would help us make evidence-based form design decisions.
Persistent was chosen because in the current system the vet techs would lose all information inputted into the intake form when another call came in. The form, and its information, should always be available to the vet tech.
Not a bot was chosen because one of the key values of GuardianVets’ service was the ability to talk to a real person. Since the the calls needed to follow a semi-structured protocol, it was important to remember to keep the human connection centerstage.
The formation of our problem statement and design principles helped us solidify our path forward. John initially pushed back on this direction because he initially wanted us to focus on the veterinary practice side. However, after a brief discussion he agreed and saw that fixing the internal system issue was critical to scale the business. Now it was time to design an efficient, but non-restrictive platform with a well designed data entry form with pre-populated veterinary practice information. With a better designed tool for staff, calls could be completed immediately and accurately, with improved data quality, and GuardianVets could more easily grow their business.
GuardianVets staff need an efficient, but non-restrictive platform for consistent data entry which includes in-call access to client information, so that calls can be completed immediately and accurately, leading to improved data quality and fostering continued growth.
It's All There
Everything is accessible in the call screen; everything is integrated and streamlined.
What Would Luke W Do?
Be practical and provide a comprehensive data driven guide just like Luke W would do.
Persistent
A user should be able to save and return to complete a form if called away.
Not a Bot
The value of the product is human-to-human conversations and our design should reflect that in language and format. Anything that is automated should feel conversational, natural, and promote helping a pet and their owner.
Ideation & Concept Testing
Divergent Concepts
To solve for our problem each team member took a concept direction, keeping GuardianVets’ staff and our design principles in mind. We started with some broad brainstorming of what ideas we wanted to include in our concepts. Broadly speaking, we wanted our concepts to include the following: Persistent forms with pre-populated information (e.g., veterinary practice name, caller ID), forms that contained veterinary practice details (e.g., on-call schedule, hours), a place within the software for the veterinarian, Katherine, and the vet techs to review calls/forms, reformat and streamline the existing intake form, and taking a call on mobile versus a desktop/laptop computer. My concept direction was Finalize Forms—returning to a computer to finalize call
intake forms.
Finalize Forms
Helping Katherine and the team complete and finalize intake forms with pre-populated information, notifications, persistent forms, and a place to seamlessly complete call/case reviews
Mobile-to-desktop
Exploring a minimal dashboard for staff to use on a computer and mobile phone
New Form
A new intake form layout, redesigned for input efficiency and ease of learning
Concept Testing Insights
It was time to test the ideas behind our concepts. For concept testing we used rough sketches and mock-ups of key screens to help us rule out ideas that wouldn’t work early-on and help us quickly identify an MVP direction. We tested with everyone on GuardianVets’ team—three veterinary technicians and one veterinarian.
Finalize Forms
Returning to a computer to finalize call intake forms.
1. Tab labels were intuitive and easy
5. Veterinary practice information was essential and well positioned in the form
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2. All the essential information was pre-populated and shown upfront; this was all that was needed to identify a call
3. The recording access was helpful here; would be used to refer back to a call as needed
4. Forms always autosaved was viewed as a positive
2. Opportunity to incorporate messaging here
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3. All testers saw this as a benefit for Katherine; necessary for continued growth of the company; no texting and emailing during case reviews
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1. Confusion over what “needs attention” referred to
Mobile-to-desktop
Exploring a minimal dashboard for staff to use on a computer and mobile phone.
1. Needed clarity on how the tabs and numbers were connected
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2. Excited to see a way to track the amount of calls taken per shift but needed visibility on previous shifts to track and estimate income per pay period
3. Visibility of incoming practice name and pet owner’s phone number would be helpful; hold is better than decline
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4. Information was essential but needed to see pricing information, doctor on-call information, and a protocol
5. Apprehension around mobile, with some excitement about potential flexibility
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6. Unsure how to enter call information into the form and would need access to client preferences
New Form
A new form layout, including input efficiency and ease of learning.
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1. Section groupings made the form more scannable and less overwhelming; removing dropdown menus lowered cognitive load and allowed easier tabbing through fields
2. Highly value auto-populated client phone number
3. Client email difficult to ask for during emotional calls
4. Predictive text entry for breed: faster, but still allowed for standardized entry; important to have the ability to add non-standard breeds if not currently on list; functionality understood by team
5. Chief complaints list issues: not comprehensive, often used “other”; some choices felt like a diagnosis (e.g., circulatory issues); a handful of values repeated between chief complaints and the symptoms list (eg., shock, toxic ingestion, etc); some calls didn't involve a complaint (e.g., prescription refills or appointment requests)
6. Staff rarely select emergency symptoms because it auto-populates and locks the summary of recommendation field
7. Hazy distinction between emergency, first priority, urgent,
and stable
8. Staff avoided field due to date/time picker
Overall there were five main insights from concept testing:
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Pre-populated caller numbers and in-call veterinary practice information were the most important features
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Staff needed a clear indication of system and form status so they could quickly prioritize and follow-through on action items
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The in-system case/call review process was efficient and enabled GuardianVets to scale more quickly
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In situations where a call started on a mobile phone (for call coverage flexibility and management), would need to ensure the matched form is accessible in the system.
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Hesitation over the mobile option
After communicating these results to John, he reiterated that the primary focus should be on the desktop. There was simply too much information needed to fit on a mobile phone. He also brought up the idea of a dynamic triage protocol to be formatted into the intake form. He wanted to emulate processes and procedures within human telemedicine. The dynamic triage protocol would better ensure the safety of the pet owners, making the call more standardized.
Converging
We took our concept testing insights and feedback from our client and decided on a convergent MVP which would include aspects of all three concepts.
What we focused on:
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Team members’ view of the system
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Tabbed desktop interface; never taking the user to a new window
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Reviews within the system
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Persistent queue for calls on hold
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Case history documentation (i.e., closed cases and call history overviews)
Out of focus:
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Developing a dynamic triage protocol—it was too late in the game to dive into this
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Building out or testing a mobile system or app
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The admin and veterinary practice side of the product
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The function of settings, outgoing calls, and scheduling
We also kept in mind our user goals:
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To complete the form efficiently and as accurately as possible given the constraints of the situation (e.g., phone numbers, names, breed)
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To provide cautious and accurate information to pet owners, including accurate clinic and referral information
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To do follow-up case reviews efficiently
Wireframes & Usability Testing
Wireframe & Prototype
Using our concept sketches as a starting point, and taking our testing insights in mind, we wireframed the MVP using Axure RP.
Prototype
Interact with the design produced in Axure RP
Testing Insights
To evaluate our MVP we pulled together a final test plan and script that had aspects of both concept testing and usability testing. Only two of GuardianVets’ staff were available for
testing—50% of our user population.
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1. Tab structure and tab labels were intuitive
2. Good to have different time zone information
3. When needing to change status, it would be nice to indicate why or a messaging feature to communicate to other the other veterinary technicians
4. Access to a phone to dial out is essential; however, this location was not ideal because the vet techs needed to have access to this button when completing a call intake form
5. Less reliance on handwritten notes and would use the audio file as a reference
“In this scenario I probably wouldn’t be handwriting notes anymore, so I might use the audio file as a reference.”
-GuardianVets Vet Tech
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1. Testers understood this was the caller's case history; it was very good to have here
2. Essential information
3. Testers understood the predictive text entry; was easy
4. Access to the phone dial-out button was needed when completing a form
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1. One tester understood the distinctions between “needs to be resolved” and “queued for review”, the other tester struggled with the naming
2. Understanding of three things to do
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1. Understands what needs to be done; easy; good to move this out of the current method of emailing back and forth
2. Responses are now part of the record
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1. Present date differently, show day of the week
2. Call time and caller’s number was not essential here. Pet name and breed would be better variables to identify a call
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1. Testers thought this tab would show statistics on types of calls (e.g., breed, percentage emergency referral)
2. Number of calls taken by week and month was good for call tracking
3. interesting to see the call patterns for staffing purposes
Overall there were a number of testing insights
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The design had intuitive layout and navigation
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Entering data into the call intake form was easy
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The ability to return to a call intake form was a huge positive
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The in-system call/case review process helped solve a big problem
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What needed further refinement: form review labels (“Needs to be Resolved”), specificity around time periods in call counts (“Calls last week”), the analytics section, and incoming call notifications
At the end of testing we made a change to a function that would be essential for veterinary technicians completing a form during a call. The vet techs sometimes needed to call out to veterinary practices while finishing a form; however, the phone button was not available while completing a form. We updated the phone dial-out button to be a persistent floating action button.
"It’s very nice and clear. Very readable, and it has all the information I wanted… feels very intuitive and easy to get around. I can’t wait to start using this!”
-GuardianVets Vet Tech
Moving the dial-out phone button to ensure it was aways accessible
So, did we address the problem? GuardianVets staff needed an efficient, but non-restrictive platform for consistent data entry which included in-call access to client information, so that calls could be completed immediately and accurately, leading to improved data quality and fostering continued growth.
I’d say we addressed the problem, plus more. Testing results and feedback from our client indicated that our MVP provided value for the team and the business as a whole. It was a unified system that allowed for more efficient calls and documentation, improved data quality, and promoted the growth of GuardianVets.
Wrapping Up
Annotations & User Task Flows
We put together annotated wireframes specifically for hand-off to UI and dev. We also developed user task flows to help our client better understand the user flows in our MVP.
Future Considerations
We provided our client with a number of future considerations related to data, the intake form, messaging, and mobile.
1. Data
There should be a unique ID beyond phone number. Using the caller’s phone number is a good first step for an ID, however, it is not unique. One solution could be the phone number in combination with pet name, breed, and/or caller name. Further, in the intake form, the redesigned breed input field needs further thought for data management purposes. When a veterinary technician enters a breed that is not in the system the input breed should be tagged. This tagging could be user-generated, admin-generated, or a hybrid. Finally, further thought needs to be given to EVMR integration. This will take extensive work; however, if GuardianVets wanted to move from teletriage into telemedicine this will be a necessary next step.
2. Intake form
The redesign form has pre-populated veterinary practice information. The system should be setup so that the veterinary practices manage and update their own information. Further, there are situations where a vet tech may need to dismiss a “bad” form or need to manually generate a new form. This feature was not built into the MVP. Additionally, the MVP does not include a dynamic triage protocol. Further work with veterinarians is needed to flesh out the protocol. It is important to standardize the triage process while maintaining the human value of a person-to-person interaction.
3. Messaging
The MVP did not include in-app instant messaging. Including a messaging feature would reduce or eliminate reliance on personal devices and accounts and would keep communication records centralized. A messaging feature could also indicate user system-status (e.g., online, on a call, on break, offline, etc).
4. Mobile
The current model of GuardianVets involved calls being forwarded to a mobile phone if the call wasn’t picked-up on the computer. The future vision of GuardianVets doesn’t include this feature; however, if there was a transitional period which involved mobile phones the vet techs would need the ability to open an intake form on their computer for all calls started via mobile phone. Further, depending on future staffing strategies, a robust mobile/tablet platform could enable increased flexibility in coverage and call management.
Project Outcome
The whole team, John, Katherine, and the vet techs at GuardianVets were impressed by what we accomplished in three weeks. John was especially grateful for our work because he viewed it as having tremendous impact for the direction of his company.
In John's Words
In John's Words
"I tend to think I know everything about my business. These guys, in three weeks, came in from scratch, learned how my business operates (which is fairly complicated), challenged (very professionally) how one of my core processes functioned even when I objected... and they were RIGHT. Not only did they uncover a problem I didn’t see, they re-engineered a core process in a way that will drive value for us in the future, they came up with a design that is intuitive for my team members to use, and frankly looks a lot cooler. This solution will help us scale faster and generate higher margins because I can utilize our technology more effectively rather than just load on more manpower due to inefficient design in the past. For anyone who questions the value of UX: I was a skeptic and now think it would be the pinnacle of stupidity to develop/jump right into UI without first going through a process like this. To anyone as a first-time entrepreneur: these guys will help you understand what ‘designing for scale’ means. This is the sort of thing that helps you a build longterm competitive advantage. I can’t emphasize the value enough."
During this project I learned how much our team decisions could help a client grow their business and keep satisfied employees. I learned when there are multiple problems that need to be solved, to stand my ground on the priority problem—not necessarily the problem the client deems the most important upfront. I learned the nuances of a B2B versus B2C products, as well as internal versus external facing products. And most importantly, I learned how design can make people’s lives easier, and in this case, help save them too.