A mobile wayfinding app for children's hospitals that uses AR Technology to help minimize navigational confusion for hospital visitors.
Hospitals are stressful environments that are confusing to navigate.
Using AR mapping technology, The Clinic Compass minimizes navigational confusion by guiding visitors through the hospital.
4 weeks
Figma, Powerpoint
Research, Conceptualize, Design Comps & Prototype, Final Presentation
For most patients, the hospital is stressful enough. It’s an unfamiliar environment with strange instruments and insufficient privacy. And to top it off, hospitals are not easy to navigate. Healthcare campuses often occupy multiple large buildings, numerous parking garages, hallways that look indistinguishable from one another, and use unfamiliar medical terminology as department names.
One-third of first time hospital visitors get lost.
It's no wonder that Deloitte Digital reports that nearly one-third of first-time hospital workers get lost and approximately a quarter of hospital workers are confused about critical locations there. It's clear that hospitals need a solution to resolve these stresses wayfinding causes for patients, visitors, and staff.
That's why I created The Clinic Compass, a mobile application that uses AR mapping technology to help visitors of Children's Hospitals navigate from point A to point B stress free.
I defined two primary users for this app. The first is Christy, a mom of three kids. Her youngest Isabelle has Celiac Disease and visits the children's hospital frequently for checkups. Users like Christy need a way to return to the clinic each visit with confidence.
The second user I defined is Daniel, a 13 year old boy who was recently diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. He is staying at the children's hospital for a week for a series of tests and educational courses about his condition. Users like Daniel can use the app to find events and activities at the hospital to stay active during their stay.
Before starting the design of the app, I determined the structure based on two main tasks that would be applicable for the user personas.
The first user flow features a hospital visitor. To help users easily navigate to their desired location, I focused on creating an intuitive search experience. I separated areas of the hospital into nine categories and included descriptions of each department name for better understanding. Users can favorite any location and find parking recommendations for each clinic.
The second task helps children who are inpatients to engage in social activities for a more meaningful hospital experience. The Clinic Compass features events that are happening at the hospital. Users can view information about the event, get directions, and save it to the built in calendar.
For the final app design I researched examples of navigational apps and digital map design. I created icons to label each location category of the hospital. The most challenging part of creating the final app design was find examples of AR mapping technology. With AR being a newer technology, it was difficult to find standard design conventions that apply to it. However, by incorporating UX laws and design principles, I was able to design the AR mapping feature for The Clinic Compass.
