Project: Caresi
- Client: SCCA
- Platform: iOS, iPhone
Contact
email@domain.com
000-000-000
Caresi
Designing a supportive healthcare
experience for cancer patients
Caresi is a journal-style mobile app designed to support newly diagnosed cancer patients through their treatment journey. By providing a single, organized place for their care information, it was designed to ease patients into building and maintaining new healthcare routines while reducing the stress of treatment.
The experience needed to feel approachable and easy to use for a broad range of users as they adapted to new healthcare routines.
My role on the project
As a UI/UX Designer, I worked alongside a product lead, designers, and the client’s UX lead to design the mobile experience from concept through to a V1 release.
My work focused on UX, interaction, and visual design across the mobile experience. I also collaborated with healthcare consultants with firsthand treatment experience, using their input to validate design decisions and reduce assumptions throughout the project.
The Challenge
Beginning cancer treatment often introduces an overwhelming number of new responsibilities. Patients need to manage appointments, care instructions, medications, and health-related information, often spread across multiple systems, while adapting to new routines and challenges.
The client wanted to explore a wide range of ideas for how an app could support patients throughout their treatment journey. The goal was to create a single place for patients to access their care information. At the same time, the scope needed to remain realistic for V1 MVP that focused on essential features.
Journal style care experience
With input from the client, it became clear that treatment information wasn’t just appointments and reminders. Patients were tracking symptoms, recording observations, preparing questions for appointments, and collecting information from different sources. This information could become spread across multiple places, making it difficult to find again when needed.
To accommodate this, the experience was organized around a journal-style calendar that brought different types of care information into a single structure. By providing one place to capture and review information over time, the app created a clearer picture of each patient's treatment. This design choice helped patients to:
• Organize appointments, notes, and care information into digestible sections
• Allow patients to capture information as it happened
• Create a central place for managing treatment-related information
Early explorations included multiple journal structures. A date-based calendar
journal was chosen following consultant feedback and testing.
Changing patients needs
Treatment affects everyone differently, and patients' needs can change throughout their care journey. At different stages, patients may focus on different aspects of managing their care.
Rather than assuming every feature would be equally important to every patient, the experience was designed to let users focus on the parts of the product most relevant to their needs, while still keeping additional functionality available when needed. This allowed user to:
• Engage and focus on only the features most relevant to them
• Move through the experience at their own pace
• Adapt to changing needed through out their care treatment
Designed for flexibility, the app included a range of features that patients
could engage with based on their individual needs.
Creating a familiar experience
Patients accessing healthcare information often navigate multiple portals and systems, each with its own structure and ways of presenting information. For some, this added complexity can make it harder to quickly find and understand important information during treatment.
To make the experience feel more familiar, the design used well-established interaction patterns and a clear way of organizing information, allowing patients to focus on managing their care rather than navigating different systems. This included:
• Using standard iOS navigation patterns to create a familiar experience
• Structuring content to make essential information easier to find
• Designing layouts that support quick scanning of care information
While designed with future platforms in mind, the initial experience stayed close to
established iOS conventions to create a familiar and approachable experience.
Designing with the patient in mind
Feedback from consults with firsthand treatment experience helped the team validate early assumptions and better understand the context in which the product would be used. Their perspectives informed design decisions throughout the project, ensuring the product was shaped by user needs rather than the team’s initial understanding. This input helped the team:
• Create a more personalized experience that better reflected individual user needs
• Reinforce a focus on real user experiences throughout the design process
• Introduce customization options and design elements to make the experience welcoming
Consultant feedback encouraged a less clinical approach, introducing moments of customization
and personality that helped make the experience feel more personal.
The project outcome
During testing, Caresi received strong positive feedback from patients undergoing treatment, particularly around having information organized in one place and easy to access. Users appreciated being able to manage appointments, notes, and care details without relying on multiple tools or systems.
The response helped validate the product direction and led to ongoing iteration, refinement, and the addition of new features.
As the product evolved, the experience extended to a desktop application, extending support across additional areas in the patient journey.