“The Return to the Classroom - with emocha Health”
Hello everyone, Welcome to my MICA Capstone - the Return to the Classroom with emocha Health!
As we enter the third year of the global pandemic, many schools are now reevaluating the protocols for on-site learning after seeing many spikes in COVID-19 cases; however with each day as unpredictable as the last, this uncertainty is likely to stand past the new year as a new variant threatens our return to normalcy.
As you know, I live in the Maryland area and COVID 19 cases are spiking astronomically around this time. With my local school system is reevaluating their on-site and in person learning strategies, my objective for this Capstone was to comprehensively implement emocha Health - a living and breathing healthcare app - into my local school system of Howard County in order to aid in the return to on-site learning. Additionally, I want to teach self monitoring skills to students and their families and finally prepare educators for an appropriate response in the event of an outbreak in the local school systems. I was lucky enough to land on my solution to this pressing problem in my Capstone Pitch and Development Course at MICA. I did some preliminary work in the previous course like crafting a Lean Canvas, Competitive Analysis, Preliminary Design Sprint and finally conducting interviews with current users of emocha Health in the Baltimore City Government.
Now you might be thinking - what is emocha Health?
emocha Health is a locally developed application originally developed to deter users from medical non-adherence missed doses of medication and to put them in touch with a medical professional if need be. The emocha Health app aims to encourage users to record their symptoms and side effects in the event that they have them in order to keep track with taking their medication. During the peak of COVID-19 cases in the beginning of 2020 and emocha Health came up with a COVID-19 response that allows employers to track the symptoms of their employees so they would be able to return to on-site work and contact trace effectively to prevent an outbreak from occurring. This approach inspired me because not only did it help local on-site companies get back to some sort of normalcy - it aided in some of my family members getting back safely which remains one of my highest priorities.
Now how can we get our students and staff to return to schools and remain there safely by using emocha Health? After many months of brainstorming and ideation, I really grounded on what would be best for our students, staff and their families; and my solution naturally came to working with emocha Health app and making this application available to be used comprehensively in order to take some of the apprehension away from the possibility of a positive COVID-19 Test result. By updating emocha Health, we can not only make a through application for teachers, students and their families to use; but it will also give them a comprehensive experience in the application as well as a way to connect it to our students curriculum in order to develop those self monitoring skills.
After nailing down a solution I needed to find my target audience and design with them at the forefront of my mind. My target audience was local school systems in the Maryland DC metropolitan area; more specifically Howard County which is my home school district. Within Howard County I wanted to focus on designing for the students, the teachers and subsequently their families in order to make emocha Health widespread throughout this community and in order to help them to the greatest degree possible.
Next I began my research phase throughout my research, I conducted Competitive Analysis of emocha’s direct and indirect competitors, Interviews with current users of emocha health, as well as my Target Users in the Howard County Community. My main goal is to design with the users at top of mind in order to create an emocha Health app that they would want to use and that they would continue to use each day until hopefully they can return to a better and safer school environment.
In my preliminary interviews, I interviewed members of the Baltimore City Government who currently use the emocha health app in order to remain on site and continue their work after a long stint of working from home. My main goal in interviewing current users of emocha Health was to get their insight in how the process to return to on site work was working with the addition of emocha Health into their daily routine. I spoke to one of the Directors of Human Resources, as they have access to the Analytics in the application to see where I can improve aspects of the application in my iteration. In addition to the Director, I spoke with three other current users and they shed some light on how emocha health app aided in their daily lives even with their own children and scheduling. Overall, these interviews resulted in positive feedback regarding the implementation of the application in the Return to Work procedure and I felt that this could be successfully implemented in schools.
The next step in my research phase was interviews with members of the Howard county community and target users of course. I conducted interviews with 2 students, 2 parents and 4 educators - each brought some interesting insight as to their pain points their goals and the current status of Howard County schools.
During my student interviews they outlined a couple key takeaways which I created an affinity map to nail down into three specific points. They outlined that they were still have your safety precautions like masks and physical distancing still being enforced in schools. They also mentioned that Covid testing was available but mandatory for students who were athletes better participating in extracurricular activities. They also spoke about the necessity for an honor code and sense of trust that needed to be in force to make sure that everyone is attending to their health and not putting others at risk. After the student interviews, I was eager to get a parent’s perspective regarding the return to school procedures and how they felt it was being enacted. During my parent interviews they also emphasized a lot of key points that I wanted to implement in the newest iteration of emocha Health. The emphasized that safety for their children was the number one priority they also expressed their concerns surrounding having multiple students in different schools were situations could be different and outbreaks could be different as well. They also mentioned that managing schedules with a potential pain point in their daily lives as well as their working lives too. After hearing their answers I began to brainstorm potential solutions for their pain points in accordance with my Lean Canvas, Analysis and Design Sprint - however I had one more group to hear from…
During my teacher interviews they also mentioned a need for equal access especially for those without access to smart phones or mobile devices to complete their emocha Health screenings from home before school each day. They emphasize the need to have accountability among all members of the school system to prevent outbreaks within homes as well as the classroom. They also drove home that they wanted to promote accountability with connection to their current curriculum and public health and safety concerns – connecting emocha Health with current curriculum will assist in providing the only accountability for all of the students and teachers in our school but also outside when they return home and grow up with self monitoring skills.
During my interviews one of my teachers also said some thing that was very integral to the development of this newest iteration of emocha Health they said that we needed accountability honesty an action as the three biggest points to keep our students safe. So I took that, ran with it and created an AHA method.
The AHA method is one of the teaching tools that I hope to implement as well as with emocha health in our school systems. And further in the development of this pneumonic device I nailed down what our AHA means.
What does our AHA Method mean?
By keeping each other accountable by self screening every day, being honest in our screenings and taking affective action to keep our space is clean and disinfected we can also ensure that everyone feels safe to resume their in person learning strategies. Everyone plays a role in keeping the community safe and our AHA method will not only teach those self monitoring skills to our students but it will also help implement those self monitoring skills at home with their families.
After my interview phase, I crafted a User Personas for all of the user types that I was designing for; we have Caitlyn Davis who is our student user, Mason Davis who is Caitlyn's father who has two children in the Howard County School System and finally Penn Miller who is our teacher who comes in contact with all of the students in the school building. Each persona elaborates on the background, tasks, goals and frustrations of the Potential User so that when designing, I would be able to address their needs directly. After the user personas, I nail down some user journeys for Penn Caitlyn and Mason, outlining the potential journeys that each user will go on to accomplish their goals, solve their pain points within the newest iteration of a mocha health and elaborate on their thoughts throughout the entire process.
let's get into the redesign of emocha Health
Next let's get into the redesign of emocha Health! After the research phase I wanted to nail down what options emocha Health had to offer now and what key features needed to be updated and added in this next iteration. Currently the emocha Health app has the Daily Screening, Communication with a nurse or healthcare provider as well as a Badging system, and I wanted to update them all in order to currently reflect the newest users of emocha Health and their families, since many are quite young.
After nailing down my Key Features and Updates, I sketched ideas in a small design sprint for further connecting the school curriculum with emocha Health. For example, the stoplight method is one that has been taught in schools for many years and always sticks with us even into our adult ears. The stoplight method is manufactured like a typical stoplight where Red means stop, Green means go and Yellow means slow down or caution, I felt that it was important to add into the newest iteration.
Additionally, I updated each user profile to include a COVID-19 FAQ to answer any questions regarding COVID-19 - with CDC provided information to bridge any gaps in the newest findings on COVID-19, the home screen also provides access to a locator where in each user can find the closest COVID-19 testing site and vaccination Center in order for them to quickly access information in the event of a ongoing outbreak in the classroom where in students and their families may need to get tested quite quickly. In designing for the teachers and parents – I designed separate features to create a comprehensive experience that directly into self for their frustrations in order to accomplish their goals. For the teachers they will additionally have the capability to access the "class directory" where in teachers will have access to the class roster to check for any read badges and potential efforts and contact tracing to prevent an outbreak. For the parents and guardians they will additionally have access to the “notifications" where they'll be able to track potential exposures for their student and plan effectively in the event of a school closure. Each of our users will have access to the school nurse local to their specific school who can give direction on school closures as well as further information on COVID-19 if the user needs any remaining direction.
After the Wireframes, I arranged my prototype into wire flows based on my user journeys exhibited above in my examples of the Screening Flow the Class Directories and the Communication flows.
Additionally in the creation of the newest iteration of the application, I didn't want to stray too far from the original look and feel of emocha Health original look. I developed a Design System to incorporate icons that emocha Health uses currently as well as new icons, badges and fonts in order to best suit the new iteration and the goals of our users.
In the specific updates to the design system, I changed the badging system in particular to encompass the curriculum students are being taught in schools - The Stoplight Method. Currently the application uses a badging system incorporating the colors Green, Yellow, Purple, and Gray. In the badging system, Green is awarded to those who receive a Green badge with no symptoms; Yellow is awarded to those who are exhibiting symptoms and should stay at home from on site work; Purple is for those who are fully vaccinated; and Gray is for those who have not completed their daily screening yet. In implementing the stoplight method, I changed the colors to reflect the current method. In the newest iteration the Badging System incorporates: Green - awarded to those who have been cleared to enter the school building; Yellow - is awarded to those who are showing symptoms but have not been in contact with anyone who has tested positive for COVID-19; Red - for those who have been in contact with someone who has COVID-19; and finally gray still for those who have yet to complete his daily screening. This update to the badging system will also help our students recognize their own symptoms as well as recognize them in others and by maintaining our AHA Method and completing the screenings as honestly as possible then we can all remain safe.
After landing on the specific look for the newest iteration of emocha Health app, I went through and created my wire frames; starting from pen and paper then moving to Low Fidelity, then Medium Fidelity - and then finally landing on my Highest Fidelity. My wireframes encompassed the specific key features that I wanted to update using my Design System, the overall look and feel that I wanted emocha Health to have as well as addressing the needs of my users while still keeping emocha’s integral message at heart. Throughout the capstone development course, I was able to receive feedback from my peers regarding my progress on my wireframes, as well as, my prototype wherein my wireframes developed tremendously. My peers had suggested that I utilize emojis for my student users to not only connect with their use of them in their daily lives; but the expression of emojis can allow for the students to better understand how they are feeling as well as how others are feeling.
In the development of my prototype, I made sure that each of my users had separate flows so that they could have access to each of their specific touch points within the newest iteration of emocha Health. The prototype below walks you through each of the journeys that Caitlyn, Mason and Penn will have within emocha Health.After prototyping the newest iteration of emocha Health, I decided to do some Usability Testing with the parents that I had previously interviewed with as well as the students that I had as well. Throughout the testing process I learned more things not only about myself; but about what my really wanted in an application of this magnitude.
“Easy and Paperless”
After testing with the parents they felt the screening was more efficient than their current mode of entering the schools - where they go through a lengthy process to enter. Unfortunately, they felt that it was hard to understand with some of my direction – so changing my verbiage will be needed for the next round of Usability Testing. For the students their testing was a bit easier, Dash they understood the direction I gave and completed tasks quickly. Unfortunately, let's get through the test without reading certain screens like the COVID-19 FAQ and the Onboarding, given that they are students we know that this can happen simply because they're just trying to get through to complete their day. In concluding my testing phase, the results of the testing not only open my eyes to what more can be developed within myself when testing others but also within the application.
“I might not read everything, because I just want to get my tasks done.”
Now with all the success as I've shared throughout the development of this project - there are always some challenges. Overall this project was one that I was very excited about – unfortunately I wasn't able to get another perspective on the application which was from the school nurse practitioner. By having the school nurse practitioners guidance and outlines on how schools are set up from their perspective; I would've had a better understanding of how Covid-19 outbreak was handled during school as well as the process for closing a school from an administrative point of view. Unfortunately around Maryland, many of the schools are closing due to the high Covid-19 positivity rates that are spreading through out certain counties; however I hope to continue to work on this project and potentially get that next perspective. Additionally, I would also like to partner with the teachers that I interviewed with previously in order to get their insight into the teacher’s portal and the Class Directory side of the emocha Health iteration that I developed.
As someone who has had COVID-19 at one point throughout the pandemic, I can attest to how confusing and unnerving it felt to not know what to do after finding out a diagnosis - from a personal experience there is a great opportunity to interview those who have tested positive and are still in the school system if they are willing; to get a basic understanding of their thoughts on the application as well as any pain points that they still have and any wish list items that might come in handy in (hopefully) the next iteration of the emocha health application.
This leads me into next steps, hopefully I'll be able to partner with one of the teachers to create an actual lesson plan and curriculum throughout the entire school year for our students and teachers to use for example something like a bulletin board for students in their classrooms. I'd also like to do a heuristic check after another round of usability testing encompassing the two groups that I didn't necessarily get to have their perspective. I'd also like to partner with email the health stakeholders and get back in touch with me my SME within the company to present my updates, findings and potentially implement emocha Health into their next design iteration.
As I said before with local school systems reevaluating their on-site learning many are actually closing due to the high case rates and returning to online learning – so I'd like to take the opportunity to introduce emocha Health to help in the safe return to on-site learning when classes are able to return hopefully in 2022.
