New Setup Wizard and Native Mobile App Feature

Based on My Recommendations an Increase of 2% in Patient Engagement with CPAP Therapy Occurred Within the First 90 Days

  • Estimated to be 166,000 out of 8.3 million users

  • I confirmed design elements that were effective in increasing motivation for study participants to engage in therapy

  • I identified design elements that needed to be iterated to increase motivation for study participants to engage with CPAP therapy

ResMed Users Were Not in Compliance with CPAP Therapy Engagement for Insurance Requirements

  • Insurance coverage for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) therapy requires that patients comply with use requirements

  • CPAP therapy compliance requirements differ for every insurance provider

  • CPAP therapy patients did not know if they are meeting requirements if they did not manually track their nightly use of their machines

I Was Asked to Test a New CPAP Therapy Onboarding Flow and Therapy Engagement Tracker Concept

  • The onboarding and tracker flow concepts were designed to test 4 time points:

  1. Day 0

  2. Day 1

  3. Day 10

  4. Day 30

  • All screens in the flows were designed by a UX Designer who was in training to be a and also functioned as the Product Manager for the project

I Decided to Run a Qualitative Usability Study

  • I wanted to watch ResMed CPAP device users navigate through the onboarding and device use tracking flow concepts

    • Study participants needed to be in their first 90 days of CPAP therapy

  • I wanted to learn about any critical design flaws that might exist

    • Why they struggled with design elements, including any confusing web copy

The Business Goal was to Increase CPAP Therapy Engagement by Patients in the First 90 Days of Therapy

  • I wanted to understand :

    • What design elements increase motivation for patients to engage in CPAP therapy?

    • What design elements failed to increase motivation for patients to engage in CPAP therapy?

    • What design elements were missing that could increase motivation for patients to engage in CPAP therapy?

Study Duration

4 weeks

Study Presented

06/21/2022

Team Members

  • Product Manager and UX Designer

Methodology

  • Usability Study

I Began Each Session by Asking Background Questions Related to Their CPAP Therapy

  • This helped me build rapport with study participants

  • I asked questions concerning their attitude about CPAP therapy

  • I asked questions about their nightly use of their prescribed CPAP machines

I Observed Study Participants as They Completed Tasks for Both Concepts

  • 4 time points had been designed:

  1. Day 0

  2. Day 1

  3. Day 10

  4. Day 30

I Moderated Sessions with 7 Participants

  • I sent 100 email invites to patients who were prescribed ResMed CPAP devices

  • My goal was to recruit at least 10 participants

    • The response rate was low

Only Those Patients Who Were Engaged With Their Therapy Participated

  • I wanted to recruit hesitators and quitters as part of the study

    • CPAP therapy is notoriously unpopular

    • Patients who were not motivated to engage with therapy did not participate in the study

  • Due to deadline constraints, I could not extend the study to recruit additional participants

My Findings Addressed the Business Goal and Study Objectives

Business Objective: Increase patient engagement in CPAP therapy

Based on my recommendations an increase of 2% in patient engagement with CPAP therapy occurred within the first 90 days.

Study Objective 1: Identify critical design and web copy flaws

Study participants were able to navigate through the flow for both concepts with ease, and confusion centered around how sleep data graphs were displayed.

  • Estimated to be 166,000 out of 8.3 million ResMed user who were prescribed a CPAP machine for nightly use

  • CPAP device use compliance was measured using Medicare's requirements of 4 hours a night for 70% of nights within the first 90 days

  • Study participants struggled to interpret sleep data graphs because of insufficient labeling of graph features

  • Study participants were able to understand the tracking interface so they knew:

    • If they were in compliance or not

    • What they needed to do to reach compliance

  • Web copy clearly communicated needed information

  • Novel images did not clearly communicate important information as intended to study participants

Study Objective 2: Identify design elements that successfully increased motivation for patients to engage in CPAP therapy

For the majority of study participants, they reported that the concept flows increased motivation for them to engage with CPAP therapy.

  • Study participants reported that the onboarding flow simplified the start of therapy and helped them understand critical information about device use compliance

  • Study participants reported that the device use tracking concept motivated them to engage with therapy

Study Objective 3: Identify design elements that failed to increase motivation for patients to engage in CPAP therapy

Graphs displaying sleep data were confusing to study participants, and a subset wanted the option to turn off certain features.

  • Graphs displaying data were confusing to study participants

    • They requested that all parts of graphs be clearly labeled

Study Objective 4: Identify design elements that were missing that could increase motivation for patients to engage in CPAP therapy

More options to turn on and off features was requested.

  • A subset of study participants identified a design element that did not increase their motivation to engage with CPAP therapy

    • They wanted an option to turn off that feature

I Needed a Specific Strategy for Recruiting Participants Who Were Not Motivated to Engage in CPAP Therapy

  • Next time, I plan to reach out to mentors and colleagues to understand how to recruit participants that are difficult to convince to participate in a study

What it Was Like to Deliver Bad News to a Product Manager

  • “Unfortunately, only motivated participants responded, and I can’t tell you if this design increases motivation for patients who are disengaged with PAP therapy.”