Making healthcare accessible for
every foreigner living in Korea.
HACKATHON PROJECT: MOBILE-FIRST HEALTHCARE APP
BACKGROUND
Seoul Tech Impact Hackathon was hosted on Nov 25th, 2023. It was a 24-hour overnight competition that was hosted over the weekend. There was no specific requirements besides the fact that everyone participate as a team of 5, and we were to create a MVP product that will have a positive social impact. At the end of the event, we were asked to give a presentation on our work. There were about 20 teams that participated, including teams that participated online.
Team
1 Product Designer (myself).
2 full-stack developers (Kevin, Michelle)
2 front-end developers (Gabby, Seulki)
Duration
Nov 2023 (24 hours)
Tools
Figma, GitHub, Google Slides
Key Skills
Ideation, Rapid Wireframing, Visual Design, UI Design, Presentation
OVERVIEW
Korean healthcare system is very unique on its own, and it's a struggle for foreigners to navigate the system.
We decided to delve into this topic because we recognized there is a real need for this service. This was a common problem that a lot of expats encountered, including some of my teammates.
TEAMWORK
Collaboration under a strict time constraint.
My team consisted of 2 front-end developers, 2 full-stack developers, and myself as a product designer. Given the time constraint, we quickly started brainstorming for ideas. We had a couple of great ones, but ultimately decided to build a healthcare app - a product that will help connect foreigners (living in Korea) to the right medical specialties in their vicinity.
GOAL
Create a product that helps users search local clinics based on their symptoms or specialties.
We planned on helping users find the right medical specialties, indicate language availability, and book appointments more efficiently.
Exploring Ideas
MARKET RESEARCH
What does the medical landscape look like in Korea?
Based on a quick research, we were able to identify that this is a common problem amongst expats. In Korea, when you need to go see a doctor, you have to go directly to a specialist. There is no general hospital that has all the different specialties (except for big university hospitals), so the patient has to do the homework to figure out which specialty clinic to go to. This can be cumbersome, and even more challenging for expats who don’t speak the language fluently.
Through quick research, we also found that there are currently 2.5 million expats living in Korea. We decided given the pool of potential users, this is a relevant issue that we can tackle.
"Language barrier and not knowing the system too well made the process of finding the right clinic very difficult for foreigners."
Defining the Problem
OPPORTUNITIES
Asking the right questions.
We discovered opportunities here by asking these questions and defining the problem:
How might we help foreigners living in Korea find the right medical specialty locally?
How might we ensure foreigners can find the right specialty and get a great service for their medical visits at ease?
How might we help these expats find clinics that are English speaking?
KEY FEATURES
Once we decided on the idea and defined the opportunities, we narrowed down on the key features below.
Design
UI DESIGN
As the only Designer on the team, I made some major design decisions for the brand including typeface, color palette, and the logo. I sought feedback internally from my teammates to finalize on the design decisions.
Chose blue as a main color for the brand, since blue is often associated with wellness and health. Used bright orange as a secondary color to highlight CTA buttons and create contrast in visual hierarchy.
WIREFRAMES
Defining structure with site mapping & flows.
Rapid sketches - For the wireframes, I went from the initial sketches straight into low-fidelity wireframes due to the time constraint.
Mid-fidelity - Once mid-fidelity was done, I shared the designs with the team to gather feedback. Based on common feedback and finalizing important design decisions, the design went through a couple rounds of iterations.
Once mid-fidelity was finalized, the developers took the design and started building the product in the backend. After I handed off the design, I continued to collaborate with the team by giving feedback and reiterating on the designs throughout the development process.
As a part of the Hackathon requirement, we had to write out our decision-making process, and create a final presentation. The whole thing in 24 hours!
Landing page
Search page
Search screens
Final Presentation
Exactly 24 hours later, each team was given 5 minutes to present on their ideas and the final products.
We were asked to highlight the problem, process, solution, and what social impact our product will make in Korea. Though the presentation time was short, we were able to cover the grounds. We defined the problem backed up with our research, proposed a solution, and walked through our process. We presented the live mock-up of the MVP. We also showed a quick demonstration of the AI search feature we incorporated into the search function. (when the user describes how they are feeling, AI search system will match the description to the correct symptoms. In the search results, it will give matching clinics nearby with the ability to book appointments online.)
And as a result, our team won 2nd place!
In their remarks, the judges mentioned they found our idea to be very relatable and practical. They were also pleased with the development and the design we came up with.
Not only was this a very rewarding experience, winning 2nd place felt like a validation of our teamwork. How we continued to communicate, iterate, and collaborate to develop a viable product with a strict time constraint.
Solution
Here's the final design solutions of WhoDaDoc.
Welcome Page
Main Search Page
Location & Calendar Page
Reflections
Time - Given the nature of a Hackathon, we had limited time of only 24 hours to complete the end-to-end development process.
Team — I was the only Designer on the team, which meant that I took on the whole design process by myself, with limited resources and help.
Lack of resources — under normal circumstances, I’d develop a live prototype of the product and conduct usability testing to gather real feedback. However, due to the nature of the event, we didn’t have enough time for usability testing. So I referred internally to gather as much feedback as I can get on my design to ensure that all features/functionalities were viable.
Final presentation — In hindsight, our team could have spent more time preparing the presentation. Since we were so laser-focused on the development phase, we ran out of time and put together the slides last minute. We didn’t get to share nearly as much as we’ve done. But had we prepared the presentation in advance, we would have been able to elaborate more on the technical development and show more design mock ups. This was a good lesson on my part, to always finish well.
Takeaways
(As cheesy as this sounds) Teamwork makes the dream work. I got lucky and met great teammates, and the teamwork we had was a big contributor to winning second place. Hackathon is also a great environment to network and connect with other people in the tech field who are passionate about what they do.
Even if you don't win, you can always learn from this experience and use it as a great lesson to generate new ideas and continue on your UX design journey.
