Reco is a spinal cord stimulation system that can be used for quadriplegic patients and therapists at rehabilitation centers.
About This Project
Reco is a non-invasive spinal stimulation ecosystem featured with electrocardiogram technology used by rehabilitation centers to help patients suffering from paralysis through their recovery process after undergoing a non-invasive treatment. The system uses groundbreaking EEG technology from the UCLA Health Department.
My Role
In 14 weeks, I was responsible for user research, interaction design of products, prototyping the digital components, as well as rapid prototyping during usability tests. I continued to work with a UCLA engineer after the project in order to fine-tune the digital product experience.
Team
Product Designer, UX/UI Designer, Graphic Designer
Tools
Sketch, After Effects, Framers, Adobe Creative
How Reco should work
How the system works
Paraplegic patients access RECO via their Rehabilitation Centers. The Rehabilitation center rents out the device to the patient and takes them through a recovery program. They take the device home once they have learnt to use it effectively.
01. Empathize
To make our product succeed in the market, we started with primary research to understand the types of spinal cord juries, competitor analysis, current trends, and market opportunities.
The main takeaways were:
The highest users segment falls into the paraplegia category, patients injured the middle to lower spinal cord, affecting the legs but not the arms.
Current products that can support paraplegic patients are unaffordable and with basic functions. There is an opportunity to tap into affordable and build an all-in-one product.
Focusing on recovery period
Patients recovering from paralysis typically undergo a long recovery process that may take years for them to adjust to. We interviewed 15 participants who currently suffer or suffer from paralysis. We asked about which part of the recovery process they had the most difficulty with and mapped out their current user journey.
“12 out of 15 participants felt that the period of having to go to the rehab center frequently for exercises was the most challenging period to adjust to. Having their independence lost all of a sudden really affected them.”
We decided to focus on the rehab period immediately after they have undergone treatment and are going for physical therapy sessions frequently at the rehab center. We also wanted to focus on how they could independently use our designs at home.
02. Define
Based on studying the different types of paralysis, understanding the technology, insights from user interviews with paraplegic patients and physical therapists, and various posture studies, we decided on a design criteria for the various RECO devices. Overall, the devices had to be cost-effective and give patient's their independence.
We worked with electrical engineers to understand the technological requirements as well as the patient’s needs to design the form.
Reco patch for customization and comfortable
Designing an application for easy readability and workflow
03. Design
To understand how the app should work, we started creating an audit for the current app experience and sketched the main flow. After auditing and a few meeting, we decided to design for Ipad device for a better experience.
The biggest takeaway:
A phone app does not work well with the therapist’s workflow. They need to view multiple sets of data in reference to each other.
Therapists have to go back and forth between tests to input data and record data into the computer with current medical systems.
Wireframes, user testing, refinements
We recruited 5 people for each prototype testing session.
The main takeaways were:
Electrode screen
Number layout - Users don’t know which numbers should be selected on the UI as the order of the numbers should match the order on the physical patch.
View selected numbers - Users wants to see which numbers have been selected
Adjusting electric currents screen
Interactive graph - When moving the graph, part of it should be highlighted to indicate which segments they are changing.
Input telemetry values - Users want manually input values as a second option to account for the changes with small increments numbers.
Select Electrodes
The therapist selects a group of electrodes based on the patient's spine injury level. Then turn it on and store it under a new mode (eg. Excercise1 ) for easy access after.
Electrical current adjustment
Once the electrodes are saved, the therapist can drag or pinch the segments in a diagram to change the values for each attribute for quick adjustments.
Monitor and compare data
Therapist monitored telemetry to see how muscles responded when current impulsed muscle fibers.
Brand Guideline for medical industry
We did a market analysis of the various healthcare brands to better understand the industry. Trust is critical. We trust healthcare providers with our lives. That’s a huge responsibility and one that prompts us to look for professionals who embody trust, authority, stability, and tranquility.
The healthcare industry relies on blue as a primary provider more than any other industry. Blue represents cleanliness, professionalism and calmness. In order to give the brand some personality, we added orange as a secondary color. Orange gives off a warm, invigorating tone, yet has a sense of urgency.
