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Visio

Supporting individuals with chronic pain as they navigate their journey toward better health and well-being.

Role

UX Design, User research, Wire-framing, Prototyping, Usability testing

Team

3 Designers

Timeline

Aug-Nov 2023

Project Type

Academic

Visio

Supporting individuals with chronic pain as they navigate their journey toward better health and well-being.

Role

UX Design, User research, Wire-framing, Prototyping, Usability testing

Team

3 Designers

Timeline

Aug-Nov 2023

Project Type

Academic

Supporting individuals with chronic pain as they navigate their journey toward better health and well-being.

Role

UX Design, User research, Wireframing, Prototyping, Usability Testing

Timeline

Aug-Nov 2023

Project Type

Academic

Team

Aug-Nov 2023

Visio

Checking In With Visio

Mark area of pain

Body mapping provides a detailed way to assess pain levels, enabling users to track changes over time. Regular assessments can help reveal patterns and fluctuations more clearly, offering valuable insights into the user’s condition.

Track activity levels and treatments

Chronic pain not only affects how you feel but also what you do. Visio enables users to log their activity levels and any treatments they may be utilizing to better understand how it impacts their pain.

Log Medication

Logging medication can help users identify patterns, assess effectiveness, and make more informed decisions about their pain management. It may also give valuable insights to healthcare providers, helping them refine treatment plans for better outcomes.

Download reports

All logged information can be downloaded for personal use or to share, ensuring loved ones and caregivers stay informed—because no one should face this alone.

Context

Imagine waking up each day with a dull ache that never fades…

Some days, it's a sharp pain that makes simple tasks feel monumental. Other days, it confines you to bed, overwhelming your body and mind. Over time, it becomes a constant presence—fading into the background yet deepening feelings of isolation.

The Problem

Those with chronic pain feel misunderstood

A study by the National Institute of Health found that chronic pain sufferers often face added psychological distress when they feel unsupported by their social network. This isn't surprising, but it raises the question: how do you communicate chronic pain to those who haven’t experienced it?

The Solution

Visio: Expanding Empathy and Understanding

Visio empowers individuals with chronic pain to take control of their health through daily self-check-ins, guided physical therapy exercises, and CBT resources. The goal is to help users track and identify patterns to better understand the factors potentially influencing their pain and improve communication with caregivers and loved ones.

My Role

Help Users Track Their Pain

I was primarily tasked with designing Visio's daily check-in feature. Which would involve users being prompted to log their symptoms in order to gather a broader dataset and monitor changes in mood and health over time. They may be asked to rate their pain, where it hurts, and how it is affecting their day to day activities. Users may also provide information about any treatments and/or medications they may be taking.

My north star principles:

Equip users with a better way to communicate their experiences to caretakers and loved ones
Provide users with a self-sufficient tool to understand and manage their chronic pain
Make it as convenient to use as possible

My north star principles:

Equip users with a better way to communicate their experiences to caretakers and loved ones
Provide users with a self-sufficient tool to understand and manage their chronic pain
Make it as convenient to use as possible

My north star principles:

Equip users with a better way to communicate their experiences to caretakers and loved ones
Provide users with a self-sufficient tool to understand and manage their chronic pain
Make it as convenient to use as possible

User Research

Pain and Perspective

The studies I discovered were insightful. However, to truly understand the user's perspective, I needed to hear directly from individuals living with chronic pain. So, I surveyed 50 participants and focused on questions that would help inform my design.

Questions:

How effectively are you able to communicate your pain to others?
Which methods, if any, do you use to track changes in your pain?
What treatments have you used to aid in relieving pain? Was it helpful?

Questions:

How effectively are you able to communicate your pain to others?
Which methods, if any, do you use to track changes in your pain?
What treatments have you used to aid in relieving pain? Was it helpful?

Questions:

How effectively are you able to communicate your pain to others?
Which methods, if any, do you use to track changes in your pain?
What treatments have you used to aid in relieving pain? Was it helpful?

These questions helped me uncover the real, unfiltered experiences of users and revealed the ways they adapt and navigate their life each day. Here’s what I learned:

Survey takeaways:

Most respondents seemed interested in having a simpler way to keep track of possible flair-ups and irregularities in their pain from daily activity.
Some respondents felt that constantly tracking their pain might be distressing but were more open to it if the process was simple.
Pain is extremely subjective. When rating pain, one person's 4 could be another person's 10 and it can be difficult to communicate the severity of the pain even to trained professionals. Numbers alone cannot paint the full picture.

Survey Results:

Respondents suggested that most users were interested in having a simpler way to keep track of possible flair-ups and irregularities in their pain from daily activity.
Some respondents felt that constantly tracking their pain might be distressing but were more open to it if the process was simple.
Pain is extremely subjective. When rating pain, one person's 4 could be another person's 10 and it can be difficult to communicate the severity of the pain even to trained professionals. Numbers alone cannot paint the full picture.

Survey Results:

Respondents suggested that most users were interested in having a simpler way to keep track of possible flair-ups and irregularities in their pain from daily activity.
Some respondents felt that constantly tracking their pain might be distressing but were more open to it if the process was simple.

Pain is extremely subjective. When rating pain, one person's 4 could be another person's 10 and it can be difficult to communicate the severity of the pain even to trained professionals. Numbers alone cannot paint the full picture.

Competitive Analysis

How Do Other Platforms Handle Logging?

So, why design a logging process at all? Well, it primarily stemmed from my competitive analysis. What I noticed was nearly every app in this domain featured some kind of check-in or logging system as the main driving feature. I analyzed the check-in flows of various applications to learn more about how they worked. A pattern began to emerge…

All the applications I analyzed had a check-in process that could be completed in one of three ways: slider scales, a step-by-step linear format, or a visual approach. I'll clarify each of these shortly. I began testing these three approaches with individuals experiencing chronic pain and collected their feedback.

Category 1: Slider Input

Users can drag a bar from 'No pain' to 'Worst pain' or with a simple 1-10 scale.

Pro: interactive, intuitive, and visually clean.

Con: lacks depth and fails to provide details regarding what the numbers actually mean.

Ex. Manage My Pain

Ex. Bearly

Category 2: Linear Input

All information is logged vertically within a single area to minimize context switching.

Pro: simplifies information by consolidating everything into a single interface.

Con: asking users to input multiple data points at once can feel overwhelming if the information isn’t properly segmented.

Category 3: Visual Input

A more visual approach, incorporating features like body zone selectors for quick and easy logging.

Pro: generally the most straightforward and intuitive.

Con: potentially too complex for those with pain concentrated in a single area such as migraines.

Ex. SOMA Pain Manager

While users generally preferred the third category for logging, after further analysis I realized there was value in all three approaches. My idea going forward would be to take the best aspects from each category and combine them to meet the goals of our project.

Initial Design

Focusing On Navigation

For the initial design, I focused primarily on assessing how quickly users could navigate through check-in and how useful they found it to be.

The check-in process involves interacting with the body diagram to select the affected areas, rating the intensity of their pain using a scale, and choosing from a list of common pain descriptors (ie radiating, burning, aching etc.) for the most accurate assessment of how they felt.

I would then conduct a usability test with a pool of 15 users. The goal was to determine how often they would be willing to check in (daily, frequently, infrequently, or never) and whether they would be willing to share insights about their pain, gathered through the app, with their support network.

Initial Results:

45% of users said they would be willing to check in infrequently
55% of users reported finding value in the app and expressed willingness to share insights with loved ones or caregivers.
20% percent of users found the check-in process tedious to complete

Initial Results:

45% of users said they would be willing to check in infrequently
55% of users reported finding value in the app and expressed willingness to share insights with loved ones or caregivers.
20% percent of users found the check-in process tedious to complete

Initial Results:

45% of users said they would be willing to check in infrequently
55% of users reported finding value in the app and expressed willingness to share insights with loved ones or caregivers.
20% percent of users found the check-in process tedious to complete

Final Design

Leaning Out The Process

The results fell short of expectations. Although users expressed general interest in logging through Visio, the data highlighted a lingering hesitancy. I assumed that these results stemmed from the length of the logging process, which proved to be less convenient for users than I expected. Dealing with chronic pain can be soul-crushing, so the logging experience should minimize as much cognitive effort as possible.

Here's what I did to improve the design:

Quicklog

Quick Log enables users to automatically carry over information from their previous check-in to a new one. This streamlined approach saves time on days when users may not feel like going through the entire check in process.

Editing logs

Users frequently mentioned during testing often their fluctuates, sometimes on an hourly basis. To provide greater flexibility and convenience, I implemented an editing feature that allows users to update their logs without needing to complete a full check-in.

Intensity descriptions

Another minimal, but helpful, change I made was providing brief descriptions for each level of intensity for the most accurate rating possible.

Conclusion

Measuring Success

After these iterations, I conducted 10 usability tests. Although the user pool was slightly smaller, I maintained consistent questions from the previous session to ensure reliable feedback.

Final Results

Increased frequency of use: 80% of users said they would be willing to check in frequently and share information with their support network.
Improved user satisfaction: 90% of users found the check-in process easier to navigate.

Final Results

Increased frequency of use: 80% of users said they would be willing to check in frequently and share information with their support network.
Improved user satisfaction: 90% of users found the check-in process easy to navigate.

Final Results

Increased frequency of use: 80% of users said they would be willing to check in frequently and share information with their support network.
Improved user satisfaction: 90% of users found the check-in process easy to navigate.

What I've Learned

Chronic pain is very complex and difficult to grasp without firsthand experience. Every design decision demanded empathy and care, but ultimately, I recognized that this idea wasn’t the right solution for everyone. While some users felt it gave them a sense of control over their pain, others found it unhelpful and only wanted to use tools and treatments that provided them with immediate relief. This project taught me that design, while powerful, is not a one-size-fits-all solution for complex problems.

Things I Would Do Differently

Develop a more comprehensive onboarding process to collect user health information earlier in the journey
Allocate more time to gather a larger testing sample, as the small user pool made it challenging to evaluate the design's effectiveness
Explore and test additional design iterations to refine and optimize the solution

Let's Work Together!

hsapo457@gmail.com