Communicating a product's value and functionality from the user's perspective
The Youth Mental Health and Technology Team at the University of Sydney developed the Synergy Online System - a digital tool that young people could use to improve their mental health and wellbeing. The project's success led to an additional $30M investment from the Government to broaden the research from focusing only young people to people across the lifespan. To deliver the next generation of the Synergy Online System - the InnoWell Platform, the University of Sydney teamed up with PwC to form InnoWell, a new company championing digital health care. This meant the new company would need to rapidly expand from a small research and development team of 15 to a cross-functional team of 60+ people over that next year. The first new company hires were heads of Technology, Product and Design. There was a vast amount of knowledge about the platform's current state and a bank of user research that needed to be shared with the new team heads to get them up to speed. It was my responsibility to facilitate the knowledge transfer of the platform so that we could align on a shared and strategic vision for the next generation of the platform.
Context
We developed the Synergy Online System through iterative co-design with young people, supportive others, health professionals and service providers. Each iteration focused on young people's needs in distinct populations: university, vulnerable communities, at risk of suicide, and receiving care at a mental health service.
The platform is a customisable digital tool kit that operates through existing service providers who utilise the system to provide their consumers with access to evidence-based assessments and feedback, intervention options, and outcome monitoring.
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Collects, stores, and reports personal and health information back to consumers and their health professionals to promote collaborative care partnerships that aim to improve the management of mental ill health and maintenance of well-being.
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Uses multiple sources of information to develop a comprehensive understanding of the consumers’ needs and track their progress over time. This primarily involves online self-reported psychometric measures from consumers and their health professionals.
User Story - "As a [persona], I [want to], [so that]."
Approach
A collaborative approach to both the platform's knowledge transfer and the future design of the platform enabled everyone on the current team and new hires to actively participate in the process, increasing the likelihood of creating a collective vision for the platform.
Through years of co-designing the platform with end-users, we had developed a wealth of user research, such as personas, user journeys, interviews, reports, and co-design workshop artefacts. Some of this research had not yet made it into development, nor had it been formally documented into an easily digestible format. To ensure this research informed the next generation of the platform and to create a shared and holistic vision, I translated the platform's current state and user research into user stories, creating a UX backlog. Once I completed all the user stories, I grouped and themed the stories by functionality.
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​Using the user stories as a basis of discussing the platform, the research team identified the core functionality of the platform, including its present state and future state based on the user research as being:​
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Multidimensional assessment across a range of domains (e.g., sleep, anxiety, mood, physical health)
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Suicidal thoughts and/or behaviours and at-risk mental state identification and subsequent escalation to required intervention
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A dashboard of results across the range of biopsychosocial domains
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Algorithms to determine the severity of needs across these biopsychosocial domains
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Algorithms to allocate clinical stage and suggested levels of care
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Real-time data tracking and interactive progress report
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Shared care planning between treating health professional and consumer
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Video-visit with a health professional
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Support person input and health information sharing
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Coordination of care across multi-disciplinary services
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Aggregate service performance indicator dashboard
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The user stories clearly defined who the users are and what functionality they needed in the platform. To complement the user stories, I created mockups so that the new team members could readily understand the user journey and core functionality.
Outcomes
Using co-design, users (young people, supportive others, health professionals and service providers) have been at the forefront of the platform's development from day one. So it was a priority for the platform's future development to stay user-focused.​
The user stories and mockups became a framework through which the new heads of Technology, Product and Design discovered the platform's value and functionality from the user's perspective. Using that understanding as a foundation, the CTO, Product Manager, and I co-facilitated design thinking sessions with the broader team to examine and explore the further development of the platform strategically and holistically.
Impact
The UX backlog and mockups enabled the new heads of Technology, Product and Design and their respective teams to quickly understand the platform's value and functionality from the user's perspective. Having a shared understanding of the users' needs, we had a collective objective, which meant that early on everyone was focused on the same goal, fostering team cooperation, vital to a company's success.
What I Learnt
Collaboration is everything. Being a part of a rapidly growing team can be challenging, but getting on the same page and working towards a common goal helped us unite as a team. Everyone had their unique talents and skills to bring to the table, by joining forces, we were able to solve problems more effectivey and creatively because we could cover blind spots.