Client
Allina Healthcare System
Role
UX Research, Content Strategy, Wireframes, UX Writing, Mockup, Prototype.
Location
Location
Minnesota and Western Wisconsin, USA.
Serving more than 28,000 employees, 6,000 associated and employed physicians, 11 hospitals, and 90 clinics.
Challenge
Final Product: Proof of Concept Prototype
Proof of Concept for Web-Based CTI solution for Allina Health. Before I could figure out the solution, I needed to understand the problem. What combination of needs did they have?
This would be the crux of this project, as the design would need to accomplish many needs, and there was a limited ability for anyone to articulate the needs clearly. Because of fears around HIPAA, I was siloed off from the Users for the duration of the project, and was never allowed talked to them.
The Need
The Allina Health CTI system would need elements of:
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A Switchboard to connect clinics and hospitals
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A Paging System for doctors
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An Emergency Call System
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An Appointment Scheduler with database and on-call lookup
The proposed solution will function as more than one type of software at a time, and more than one website, necessitating the need for flexible use of screen real estate.
ALLINA HEALTH CTI CONTACT
CENTER INTERFACE DESIGN
Research and Competitive Analysis
For the competitive analysis, I examined Contact Center software that uses best practices, including Avaya and Salesforce. The focus of this research was ease of access to Contact Center Employee Dialing systems, AUX code systems, incoming call queue, and access to messages. I also examined Everbridge (an emergency contact software) to get an understanding of their systems for emergency call escalation after the proposed Allina form gathers information.
Discovery and Design Session with Allina and Challenges
There were various sessions of discovery and design with Allina, particularly since access to users was denied because of client anxiety regarding HIPAA. The inability to apply any contextual inquiry, interviews, or observation of users was a major hurdle, as the existing design was a combination of three different softwares with no usability or visual design added. Watching users in their workflow was vital.
Understanding the workflow and needs without any direct connection to the user or usage was an extreme block. I used affinity mapping with administrators to attempt to understand the connections between systems.
User Flows and Persona
I created a Persona for the Call Center Employee, and was able to talk to two Call Center Supervisors to get some idea of who would be using the software. In collaboration with Allina programmers and Business Analysts, we created a document to track User Flows for the various types of calls that Call Center employees must manage.
The fact that the proposed product is a combination of various types of software created the need to track the different types of call flows. Both patients, as well as clinic and hospital staff will be calling in, resulting in a complex web of user paths and needs.
Wireframes, Mockups
Below are images of various essential states of the resulting mockup:
This is close to the neutral state of the screen. Please note that all smaller screens within the whole are flexible and can accordion to enable sections to become bigger, smaller, or unused. This enables call center employees to set up their screens in the way they prefer at the beginning of each shift.
Next Steps
The client has signed off on the POC, and we are beginning the build of the product. In order to continue with the design, it's imperative that I have access to the user. I intend to undertake a contextual analysis of the contact center employees, and ask for access to the current design's training environment.
