Summary
Leveraging insights gained from leading workshops and collaborations with teams of stakeholders, I create a structure and define interaction patterns for an interactive visual aid in a manner that complies with the strict regulations regarding how information can be presented, and allows pharmaceutical reps to access information in a manner consistent with their needs.
So many acronyms…
Pharma loves acronyms, so lets start by defining some of the ones you’ll see repeated in this study.
IVA
Interactive Visual Aid – a presentation document used by pharma reps to provide information to Healthcare Providers, usually about new treatments
PDN
Painful Diabetic Neuropathy – pain arising as a direct consequence of abnormalities of the somatosensory system in diabetic patients, mainly affecting the feet and legs.
HFX
A new-to-market, electronic SCS (spinal cord stimulation) implant from Nevro, intended to provide non-pharmacological relief from the symptoms of PDN
The Problem Space
Nevro needed a tool pharma reps could use to educate healthcare professionals about HFX, their new treatment for PDN
That tool would take the form of an interactive visual aid, meant to be interacted with on an iPad. My team and I were tasked with creating the narrative for the IVA, creating the structure in which that narrative would live, and creating the interaction patterns that would be used to navigate through the document.
The resulting IVA was going to need to accomplish a couple things for the pharma reps:
Allow for a flexible, non-linear presentation of content
Allow for the rep to access any piece of information in as few steps as possible
Have a structure and navigational patterns that balance providing sufficient content, without overloading the healthcare professional with information
Ensure that the presentation of the content complies with strict legal regulations regarding how the treatment can be spoken about
The biggest challenges for the project were going to be:
- Finding ways of minimizing the amount of information present on any given screen in a legally compliant way
- Presenting a large amount of technical content within the confines of a small iPad screen and mobile interactions
- Gathering and organizing all of the necessary content within a tight timeframe
Building the Structure
I led collaborations with different teams to start auditing what content existed, and mapping it out to a possible structure
- I initiated working sessions with the medical writers to understand the intent behind the different pieces of content, label them, and brainstorm where they might fit within a structure
- Including the account and legal teams in the sessions helped inform what content needed to be with which for it to remain compliant
- Legal requirements also impacted copy in terms of headline, subhead, and paragraph length; a lot of negotiating was needed to bring copy lengths down to appropriately fit the device screen size
As I got more information from the teams, I was able to to start mapping content and interactions within the structure
- I encouraged the team to start working on the manuscript within the wireframes, in an effort to get an idea of how the content would live in situation
- This allowed me to see where content would need to be adjusted, separated, or moved behind an interaction
- With the guidance of the legal team, I was able to formalize a structure and interaction patterns for the content that they were comfortable with
The Final Product
The final wireframe prototype leveraged the insights gained to illustrate my recommendations on how to balance presenting a large amount of regulated content in a predictable, streamlined, compliant manner.
Navigation at the bottom of the screen, so hands and arms don’t block content while presenting
Navigation broken out into two levels, allowing for reps to jump to any screen with two taps
Minimal scrollable areas (as legal feared content would go unnoticed); opting instead for hidden content to be placed behind visually distinct callouts
To prevent an overwhelming amount of information, content was accessed via modals
Images and graphics could be expanded to promote focus
Quick links on certain screens allowed easy access to other, related sections of the presentation
An expandable menu, accessible from any screen, that allowed the reps to jump to any screen or modal within the presentation
As this was an iPad native app, interactions were limited to those accessible for a mobile device
*For access to the full, clickable prototype, please email me
Results & Reflections
Ultimately, the project was considered a great success by both internal stakeholders and the client.
For future projects, some takeaways were:
- IVAs generally implement heavy analytic tracking; pushing for deeper access into these analytics would have been helpful in making further decision
- I enjoyed the challenge of breaking down information, and building it back up into a clear narrative sequence
- For future IVAs, I would push more heavily for a round of ethnographic research, to observe how these presentations generally go in the real world
The client was extremely pleased with the flexible and efficient outcome of the work
Completion of this work prompted further digital ecosystem work from the client, generating more revenue for the agency
New processes and increased understanding of IVAs were instilled in the agency team, generating efficiencies on similar projects
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