About The Project

A freelance project where I was tasked to validate existing personas, conduct user research and provide design suggestions for RootMD's newest website mockup.

Timeline

Tools

4 weeks

Figma, Zoom, Google Drive

My Role

User Researcher, UX Consultant

RootMD

Project Overview

RootMD is a health-tech platform and service that aims to address and fix gut-health issues by addressing the root causes of the discomfort, which is often caused by improper immune responses to certain foods or microbes. By taking a simple blood test, users can find out what their sensitivities are and be coached to better health through their mobile application, which helps users track their progress, order supplements, get help and ultimately adapt their lifestyle for the better.

For this project, I was a UX researcher and consultant for RootMD. I validated their existing personas, conducted user research, and gave feedback and design suggestions for their web and mobile app interface.

I was a UX researcher and consultant, working with RootMD to improve their user interface and user experience of their product platforms.

The Challenge:

At this stage in time, RootMD was still developing their website as well as their application. They had done some prior user research and had developed 2 personas that they wanted to target with their product:

a person who was experiencing digestion issues but didn’t know the causes of their discomfort
a patient who was recently diagnosed with a gut-related health issue, but didn’t know how to adjust their life to improve their condition

However, they wanted additional validation regarding their two personas and they asked if I could do some additional research to further understand and diver deeper into their two personas and find new ways to improve the user experience to specifically address their concerns.

Additionally, RootMD needed to test their first version of their website interface, which was the access point where potential customers get to read about their product for the first time. They wanted to make sure their website experience was user friendly and had all the information that users wanted to know, so another one of my deliverables was to user test the website and give design suggestions.

Plan of Action:

Knowing these things, I made a plan on how to execute these tasks during the next 4 weeks.

I decided that I would recruit participants for a 2-part interview, where the first part was a personal interview, asking them about their experiences and struggles with their digestive issues, as well as their needs. The second part was a user research test of the RootMD website to gauge the user experience and how well it addressed the user’s concerns.

Following the interviews & tests, I would organize my data into findings and generate a report that I could submit to RootMD for their reference. Following that, I would choose a few critical findings and present my suggested design changes through Figma.

Project Timeline

Week 1: Recruit participants & create research scripts

Week 2: Begin interviews & collecting data

Week 3: Finish interviews & compile data into report

Week 4: Present research findings & design suggestions

B | Persona Exploration

Before interviewing, I came up a with list of questions for the sake of persona validation.

These questions were mainly designed to just understand the user’s experience with this area of their life and to see what types of steps they’ve taken. I wanted to know how the users felt about their situation and what their different pain points were as well as where they were in terms of addressing their own health.

A | Recruiting

In order to do user research, I needed users to talk to.

Since RootMD had given me 2 personas they wanted to study more deeply, my first step was to recruit people who relatively fit within their description.

I sent out a simple screening survey to select for participants who either were diagnosed with a gut-related condition or experience semi-periodic digestive health issues, such as bloating, cramping, acid reflux, diarrhea, nausea, constipation, etc.

10 people who responded to me fit the bill, and I scheduled 1.5 hour slots with them through the course of 2 weeks.

There were 5 main questions I wanted to ask:

Do you or have you ever experienced periodic stomach or gastrointestinal pain, discomfort or abnormalities?
Have you ever tried to do anything to try and address your symptoms, or to find out more information?
Have you ever tried to find solutions through the internet?
Have you ever tried going to the doctor to receive more information or get a diagnosis?
Did the doctor give you any treatment or advice? Did following those tips help?

These questions were the main umbrella questions, and I had a series of follow-up questions for each that were designed to draw out more information within each of these questions, such as their feelings, their frustrations, their thoughts, etc. I didn’t always follow these questions exactly—if the interviewee mentioned something interesting, I would often ask them more about that specific area, and it was pretty much always valuable information.

I gleaned a lot of interesting findings from this process. Some common points among both personas include:

People often have a bad or subpar experience with doctors or the medical system overall
- the experience of being “brushed off”
- doctors seemed like they were rushing off to the next patient, which affected trust
- initial scheduling of appointments was difficult
- doctors being unable to make any conclusions
People get advice from all over the place
- some people trust the internet, some don’t for medical-related advice
- often, people get a lot of input from people who are around them enough to observe their issues—parents, friends, etc.
People have different reasons for staying passive regarding their gut issues
- they’ll try and observe patterns & often will attribute it to food sensitivities and expect it to be short-lived
- think that there are solutions out there to address their concerns because digestion is so personal
- think it’ll be just the short-end of the “normal” stick, attribute it to just “poor digestion”

Persona #2

Tired Tiana is someone who has recently been diagnosed with Celiac Disease, and is at a loss for how to change her lifestyle and cope with her condition. She wants something to support her through this process.

Overall, I do agree with the personas that RootMD initially chose. There are a lot of complexities regarding these two personas and while they do share overlaps, ultimately they have different “key” needs and will end up using the technology and services of RootMD differently. For someone like Uncertain Eunice, determining the root cause of her discomfort will be her priority. As for Tired Tiana who already perhaps is diagnosed, she may value that feature but will most likely appreciate the coaching aspect of the application more to help her adjust to certain diet restrictions and provide her with extra support.

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Persona #1

Uncertain Eunice is someone who experiences various gastrointestinal discomfort, but doesn’t know what she has. She wants to find a solution.

With my findings, I updated the existing personas by creating 2 more in-depth personas based off the information I gleaned from my interviews.

C | Mockup Testing

As for mockup testing, I also created a script that would help me guide them through the test, which was very open-ended. This is because the website was mainly reading content, designed to introduce and persuade the user to purchase the product. This test itself is a little atypical due to the fact that there was no genuine prototype, simply because of the limitations set by the company. Instead, I conducted tests by sharing my Figma screen and creating a pseudo-prototype.

The goal of this test was just to see whether the information is presented in a pleasant and user-friendly manner, as well as whether the flow of the content made sense or was useful to the users. As a result, most of the interview consisted of each of my 9 participants to just voicing their thoughts as they went through the various webpages, with a follow-up questions from me. At the end of the session, I asked them whether they were convinced and whether they would use the product.

Testing was the longest part of the interview. The previous persona research conversations were on average about 20- 30 minutes long. However, my participants were very generous with their feedback and thoughts, and going through each page of the website, as well as some screens of the mobile interface, often took 45 minutes to an hour. Most of these tests were done in person, but 2 out of the 10 participants chose to test remotely, so I used Zoom to call them and observed through screen sharing.

A screen capture of one of the pages on the website I tested.

E | Design Suggestions

With these findings, I also created a section within the report that gave suggestions regarding each section of the website.

Similar to how I compiled comments from each section, I broke down my findings and opinions and separated them by section, and gave my input on how to change each section.

For example, for the landing page, I recommended moving the logo away from the center of the page, and making an obvious icon for navigation instead. I also recommended changing the words “gut health,” because users found it vague and casual. The potential issues of this wording is that users may misunderstand and think RootMD isn’t a product that could help due to their lack of understanding, or think that they’re unprofessional, simply due to wording.

I also recommended adding more high quality photos throughout the first section of the page, because the landing page is where the user forms their first impression of the product. If the user were instantly impressed or made to feel that the product was catered for them on the first page, they would be much more likely to want to learn more.

Page 1/4 of my design suggestions

Reflections

Overall, I thought this was a very interesting and unique experience, getting to work with a company on a real project. Given the nature of where the company was at in its development, I think this research process was a little difference from how I most likely would have normally done things. However, I’ve realized that UX research and design are things that allow for flexibility, and so long as you observe carefully, you can always learn something new.

I was very surprised at some of the findings of the project. It made me realize that user experience isn’t just limited to buttons and layouts and specific elements. Even a webpage with mainly words still has a certain kind of user experience, even if it seems like there’s not much going on. However, word choice, content, layout and even consistency of icons add to the experience and vibe of a product, and it really has the potential to make or break a product.

Ultimately, humans are at the core of UX design, and because of this, it’s a complex field that won’t just be neatly fit into a clear set of guidelines. There’s always questions to be asked, factors to be considered, and things to be improved—and that’s what makes this field so exciting to be in.

D | Synthesis

Following user testing, I compiled all my findings together.

During the testing period, I had broken down my notes based on the section of the website we were on. For synthesis, I grouped all my user’s comments about one particular section of the website together to get a better picture of what kind of feedback was given for each section.

After going through each of the comments, I noted down overarching themes or common feedback for each of the sections, and analyzed these findings to determine the importance of such feedback. For example, common opinions about the color scheme of one page were not as important to me as feedback regarding the difficulty of navigation. As I went through section by section, I chose feedback that I thought was important or interesting, and created a UX research report detailing my findings.

There were a few key findings that I thought were especially interesting.

People were caught off by certain word choices, and it affected their opinions.
- For example, the term “gut” is used is quite extensively throughout the entirety of the website and its products, in terms such as “gut health," “gut disease,” and “gut symptoms.” However, a majority of my participants expressed a lack of familiarity with this term, and many thought it was rather unprofessional sounding and potentially made them doubt the legitimacy of the company.
- Additionally, the word “phlebotomist” was used in a section that was talking about how people have the option of bringing in a professional to take their blood if they don’t feel comfortable with doing it themselves. However, users didn’t know what a phlebotomist (a professional who draws blood) was, and ended up not realizing that having someone come to their home and take their blood was an option.
People want way more photos and way less words.
- This isn’t specific to certain pages, but was just feedback that I received throughout. I’ve realized that users really prefer photos above words, and it was surprising how even a small chunk of text could still elicit a “too much, I wouldn’t bother to read it” kind of response from a user.
People actually notice small details, even when they’re just skimming a website.
- Since this website is still very early in its stage of development, there were some design imperfections, such as slight misalignment, inconsistency of icon placement, etc. These were not missed by my test users—many of them brought it up, and they expressed that it took away from the credit of the website because it made the website experience feel unpolished.
Clear navigation is important and needs to be easily accessible.
- The current website design incorporates a lot of “within-page” buttons that allow you to click to other pages. However, it easily takes users out of the main page, and leaves them leaving one page halfway through to read another page, which may not be the desired outcome of the website. It’s crucial for users to get all the important information regarding the product to allow them to make a decision to try out the product. Users had a hard time exploring the website because navigation was not well-centralized.

Users expressed that they would have liked better navigation, especially from the landing page.

Users pointed out the inconsistency of the placement of the numbers on this graphic, showing that the smallest details matter.

A snapshot of how I compiled comments together