Role - Researcher, Designer | Tools - Figma | Year - 2024
Problem
Physical therapy is ineffective when patients don’t have proper instruction or support.
Having experienced the challenges of at-home and in-person physical therapy, it becomes clear how difficult it can be for patients to stay motivated and perform exercises correctly without personalized care and guidance. This understanding led to exploring how recovering patients deserve real-time feedback and accessible support.
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The Solution
An improved experience of rehabilitation through the use of AR.
Move Mentor is an app that makes physical therapy more accessible and effective by providing personalized AR guidance, ensuring users perform exercises correctly and stay motivated during their recovery.
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Key Features
The application includes a handful of important elements, such as: personalized experience, pain recognition, progress tracking, health insights and real-time feedback.
Personalized Experience
Experience a personalized recovery process with pre and post-workout surveys. Before each session, users assess their pain, abilities, and goals, while post-workout surveys help track progress and challenges. This feedback allows the app to tailor future workouts, ensuring exercises remain relevant and aligned with the user’s recovery needs.
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Pain Recognition
The Pain Log allows users to record pain levels before and after each workout. This feature tracks the intensity, location, and frequency of discomfort, helping users identify pain patterns throughout their recovery. By logging this data, Move Mentor adjusts the user’s exercise plan to minimize pain and ensure that their rehabilitation is on track.
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Progress Tracking
The progress feature helps users visualize their recovery journey and stay motivated by monitoring key milestones. With metrics such as exercise completion rates, personal goal tracking, and overall improvement, users can see how far they've come!
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Health Insights
The Vitals Dashboard tracks essential data, like heart rate and blood pressure, so users can stay informed about their physical condition. This feature allows for a clearer understanding of how the body is responding to therapy, enabling users to make more informed decisions about their rehabilitation.
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Real-Time Feedback
The routine page is designed to guide users through each workout with precision and support. Featuring a hologram trainer, users can follow along with a virtual instructor demonstrating proper form. The app also offers form correction, providing immediate feedback to ensure exercises are done correctly and safely. This interactive experience helps users improve technique and prevent injury.
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Research
Understanding the Problem
I created personas to better understand the target users and their specific needs. I conducted a user survey and interviews to gather insights into pain points, preferences, and goals related to physical therapy. Using this data, I developed a journey map to identify key moments of frustration and opportunity.
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Physical Therapy Patient Persona
45 Years Old | Construction Worker
User Story
Jason has spent 20+ years in construction, but a torn rotator cuff has kept him from work. While he attends weekly therapy, he struggles to stay consistent at home, often forgetting proper form and lacking motivation.
Pain Points
- Lacks confidence in form - Fears re-injury
- Needs motivation to stay consisten
Goals
- Better form. - Feels and sees progress
- Motivated and consistent
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Organizing the quotes and notes from my user interviews.
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My research led me to a few patterns that guided my direction:
Users struggled most with recovery due to incorrect
form, and some found it even harder to maintain
proper form throughout their exercises.
Users found it difficult to stay motivated during
recovery, and some felt discouraged when they
couldn’t see immediate progress.
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Mapping the User Experience
This journey map illustrates the user's emotional and physical highs and lows throughout the recovery process, highlighting key challenges and opportunities for improvement.
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Design Process
Early Design Iterations
"This collection of sketches showcases the initial design iterations as we explored different approaches to the user experience."
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Evolving Sketches
Building on my initial sketches, the welcome page design was one page in particular that underwent key refinements to improve usability, visual hierarchy, and user engagement.
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The Final Prototype
Ready to start your first session?
Link to my Figma file HERE.
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What I Learned
The Value of User Testing with a Broader Audience
Including users with a wider range of physical therapy needs in testing would have provided more diverse insights, helping to better understand how different user groups interact with the app. This experience emphasized the importance of inclusive testing to create a more effective and accessible design.
Including users with a wider range of physical therapy needs in testing would have provided more diverse insights, helping to better understand how different user groups interact with the app. This experience emphasized the importance of inclusive testing to create a more effective and accessible design.
Improving the Onboarding Experience
I realized that a more streamlined onboarding process could significantly improve how new users interact with the app. A clear, user-friendly introduction would help users understand the features faster and feel more confident navigating the platform.
I realized that a more streamlined onboarding process could significantly improve how new users interact with the app. A clear, user-friendly introduction would help users understand the features faster and feel more confident navigating the platform.
Prioritizing Accessibility Enhancements
Ensuring the app is accessible to users with visual or motor impairments is essential for inclusivity. This project reinforced the importance of building accessibility features from the start to create a truly usable and inclusive experience for all users.
Ensuring the app is accessible to users with visual or motor impairments is essential for inclusivity. This project reinforced the importance of building accessibility features from the start to create a truly usable and inclusive experience for all users.
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