DrDoctor
DrDoctor is a health tech platform that helps NHS trusts provide more cost-effective, higher quality care to patients.
It allows trusts and patients to communicate via an online portal and SMS. Through DrDoctor, patients can receive appointment reminders, reschedule appointments, receive digital letters, and request follow-up appointments.
My role was to improve the platform's scheduling products through user-centred design and to conduct research in a new problem space.
The challenge
More patients than ever are waiting for treatment on the NHS. Combined with chronic worker shortages and ongoing pressure on services, waiting times in England have increased to record highs. In December 2023, the median waiting time for treatment was 15 weeks - almost double the pre-COVID median of 8.3 weeks in December 2019.[1]
The UK Government has encouraged the use of technology to ease the pressure on NHS services and increase efficiency.[2] DrDoctor helps trusts achieve this by ensuring that patients don't miss their appointments and that as many appointment slots as possible are filled effectively.
As each trust has their own internal processes for managing appointments, we had to make sure that product enhancements fitted trusts' varying and complex needs.
[1] - NHS backlog data analysis, British Medical Association, 8 Feb 2024
[2] - Innovation and new technology to help reduce NHS waiting lists, UK Government, 8 Sep 2021
Key Responsibilities
- Discovery research
- Usability testing
- Wireframing and prototyping
- Workshop facilitation
- Design System management
Team
Time in role
1Product enhancements
I helped improve DrDoctor's products by researching, designing and testing enhancements. This increased feature adoption in existing clients and helped the client team sell to new trusts.
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Rapid, high-fidelity prototyping with a revamped Design System
When I joined the company, I discovered that the Design System was not being kept up-to-date. There was no way of knowing if a component or style in the Figma library was the most recent version. This meant that prototypes the Design Team produced rarely looked like the final product, and Developers had a hard time working out how the designs corresponded to the front-end framework they used.
Additionally, the components had not been set up with component variants or auto layout. This made it time-consuming to resize them or switch between different variants, slowing down the Product Designers' workflow.
To address these issues, I collaborated with the Design Team to document the latest version of each component, text style and pattern in the Design System. I then rebuilt each component using auto layout and component variants so that they were much quicker to prototype with. We created a Jira board where the team could discuss component changes together, making the process more transparent.
These changes sped up the Product Designers' workflow and made it easier for new designers to start building prototypes.
2Product research
I helped DrDoctor investigate trusts' pain points on managing waiting lists, prototyped a new product that addressed these pain points, and tested it with clients for feedback.
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Feedback from colleagues
I worked with Chris on a complex product development project.
He's a fantastic Product Designer that remained calm and managed the expectations of a demanding client very well, leading them to an agreed product spec in tricky circumstances. I know he was stretched pretty thinly across multiple projects at the time which made the quality of his work and his demeanour all the more impressive.
On a personal level, he is a genuinely caring colleague who is a pleasure to work with.
Chris is able to explore complex and large scale problems while also paying meticulous attention to details.
He is extremely professional, humble and approachable making him very effective at collaborating with people in a variety of roles. The designs he produces are not just delightful to look at but consider broad user abilities and experiences.
I've enjoyed working with and collaborating with Chris and can't recommend him highly enough.
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