Patient-to-physician app concept

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Using a clear, consistent, and kind design system to help people in need

Overview of the challenge

This patient-to-physician app helps people easily find and schedule appointments with doctors in their area.

I created this concept as a self-imposed design challenge. The challenge prompt was to create an app that utilizes components—in particular, form and input components—to provide a clear and friendly experience to users in need.

Project goals

Create an app that simplifies a patient's process of searching for, and scheduling appointments with, local doctors.

Create a design system that uses components to clarify and simplify the process of submitting information through forms.

Planning: a component-centric design project

Using components to solidify the UX of forms

The app uses a simple design system focused on reusable components. Most of these components include inputs, such as text inputs and checkboxes.

For these input components, I also included different validation states. Form validation is an important UX consideration because forms ask people to share personal, possibly sensitive, information with third parties. As a result, I sought to design forms in such a way that they built trust with the user through low interaction friction (i.e. ease of use) and helpful validation messages.

I studied Carbon Design System and Material Design for guidance on how to develop the components and how to write the accompanying copy that was used in the app.

Why'd you start designing with components?

TL;DR: Because this was a fairly specific UX design exercise. I probably wouldn't do this in a real project.

Normally, I would begin the visual design process using wireframes. However, because this app was an independent exercise in creating design systems, I chose to begin with components as the starting point. This was done to quickly facilitate the process of creating a consistent visual and functional design system.

The outcome: implementing the components

While designing the app, I focused less on creating an aesthetically novel visual design and more on ordering every piece of information, and their respective components, in logical places. Here, I demonstrate that an effective UX relies not so much on eye-grabbing typography or color choices, but a clear, consistent, and kind layout that helps the user achieve their goal.

The components helped me achieve that goal by establishing a clear, consistent, and kind language that forms the basis upon which the app guides and communicates with the user.