Introduction 🌟
HealthBeats is a health technology company offering a Remote Vitals Monitoring (RVM) platform for hospitals and clinics. The platform enables healthcare providers to remotely monitor patients’ vital signs, supporting proactive and continuous care from the comfort of the patients’ homes.
Background
Not everyone has reliable internet, especially in remote areas with weak or no signal. Some users have to travel just to access Wi-Fi in order to take measurements using the HealthBeats app and certain devices require the app to start measurements, making offline tracking impossible.
Since Remote Vitals Monitoring is central to our product, it was essential to enable users to monitor their vitals even offline. This led to the development of the Offline module, allowing measurements anytime, anywhere and ensuring continuity of care.
My Role 👩🏻💻
Collaborated on the patient-facing mobile experience (iOS & Android) with a team of designers to support Offline Mode across all app modules.
Delivered the Offline Mode solution for Remote Vitals Monitoring within 5 months, empowering users to track their health seamlessly in any environment and improving care continuity.
Impact 🚀
Patients: Continue taking their measurements even without an internet connection, ensuring uninterrupted care and peace of mind.
Healthcare Providers: Maintained visibility of patient activity and received synced data once connectivity was restored, supporting continuous monitoring and timely interventions without disruption.
Healthcare Providers: Maintained visibility of patient activity and received synced data once connectivity was restored, supporting continuous monitoring and timely interventions without disruption.
The Challenge ⚠️
Many patients rely on the app to track their vitals and complete scheduled care tasks. However, limited or unreliable internet access caused by remote locations, travel or device settings like Airplane Mode often prevented patients from completing measurements and sharing data with their healthcare providers.
The goal of this module was to enable patients to take vitals measurements anytime, anywhere, without requiring an active internet connection, while ensuring care teams could continue to monitor and act on the data once connectivity was restored.
Understanding User Challenges 🤔
We conducted stakeholder-informed research, gathering insights from stakeholders who had direct interactions with providers and patients. These insights helped us understand user challenges and shaped the design direction for Offline Mode. To develop targeted solutions, we translated these challenges into “How Might We” (HMW) questions, which guided our ideation and feature brainstorming.
Stakeholder insights shaped HMW questions and guided Offline Mode design.
HMW Questions 💡
Defining Sprint Goals 🎯
We defined clear sprint goals to align the team and guide the design process. We envisioned the ideal offline measurement experience six months into the future, defining what success would look like for both patients and healthcare providers. This focus helped ensure our ideation and feature designs addressed the most critical user needs.
Sprint goals aligned the team and shaped the ideal Offline Mode experience.
Mapping the Path to Impact 🌎
We mapped the target experience and aligned the “How Might We” (HMW)
questions with key points in the user journey. This process helped us prioritise
focus areas and identify where design efforts can have the most impact for both
patients and healthcare providers.
questions with key points in the user journey. This process helped us prioritise
focus areas and identify where design efforts can have the most impact for both
patients and healthcare providers.
Translating insights into a journey map to align teams on where to focus design efforts.
From Ideas to Concepts ✏️
During concept sketching, we generated and organised ideas into clear user flows, using notes and quick sketches to communicate concepts. The team then voted on the solutions with the most impact to prioritise ideas for further development.
Sketches and flows helped the team visualise ideas and prioritise key concepts.
My Design Focus
Each team member was assigned a focus area for the Offline Mode module.
My focus was on:
• Educating users about offline mode
• Facilitating the transition from online to offline mode
• Ensuring a seamless measurement experience while offline
• Identifying modules in the app to support offline functionality, such as displaying offline state screens or providing information accessible without connectivity
This allowed me to dive deep into key challenges and design targeted solutions for these critical areas.
Designing for Uninterrupted Care
Patients shouldn’t have to worry about losing connection. Our solution focused on keeping the experience smooth and ensuring care continued uninterrupted, even without internet.
Educate Users About Offline Mode 📚: In-app guidance gently explains what to expect and how their data will be handled while offline.
Seamless and Reassuring Transitions 🔄: Subtle notifications inform users when they go offline, confirm that their measurements are safely stored and notify them once everything has synced back online.
Uninterrupted Vital Measurements 📊: Even without internet, patients can continue recording their health data without disruption, with only a quiet reminder that they are offline.
Offline Access Across the App 📵: Key information and certain modules remain accessible while offline including care plans, educational content and offline state screens, ensuring users can continue engaging with the app even without connectivity.
Outcome 🎉
After three development cycles, the Offline Mode module successfully went live, achieving nearly 99% accuracy to the Figma designs.
• Patients were able to continue measuring and recording their health data even without internet access, ensuring uninterrupted care and a seamless experience regardless of connectivity.
• Healthcare providers could access accurate and synced data once patients reconnected, maintaining data integrity and visibility across the care journey.
The design was validated through SIT and UAT, with successful sprint cycles and close collaboration with developers ensuring a smooth rollout.
Seamless offline tracking keeps patients and providers connected.
Monitoring Without Limits
The final design was showcased at the Asia Pacific MedTech Forum 2023, marking the public launch of HealthBeats Offline Mode. Presenting at the event allowed us to demonstrate how thoughtful design can address real-world challenges, ensuring continuous patient care even in low-connectivity environments.
Key Takeaways 📚
This project highlighted the value of collaboration and teamwork. Working in a design sprint allowed me to generate ideas, share insights and learn from perspectives I had not considered before. The iterative feedback process revealed approaches and solutions I might not have discovered on my own, demonstrating the impact of collective problem-solving in design.