Investigating chat visit usage and motivations
Company: Nice Healthcare
Project duration: 1 month
My role
I was the sole UX researcher on this particular project. I was responsible for the following:
Crafting a research plan
Developing a survey to explore chat visit usage and motivations
Creating a recruitment strategy and scheduling all patient participants
Generating an interview guide and note-taking template
Facilitating interviews with note-taking support from Principal Designer
Synthesizing research findings into key insights and opportunities
Socializing research findings
The challenge
This research project aimed to explore the usage patterns of the general chat feature and chat visits in the Nice app, as well as to understand the motivations behind patients' usage of these features.
By gaining insight into patient behavior, we hoped to optimize the app experience for our users and to guide patients to the most appropriate visit type for their needs, benefiting both the patient and provider experiences. Ultimately, this research sought to address the problems and business needs related to enhancing the user experience and improving the overall visit efficiency.
The research methodology
Qualitative research
Crafted survey that was sent to 25 patient council members
Conducted five 1:1 remote interviews via Zoom
Quantitative research
Collaborated with data analysts to capture quantitative metrics around chat visit usage
The research objectives
Identify when patients were using the general chat feature
Explore why patients were scheduling chat visits compared to other visit formats
Explore patients’ expectations of chat visits including scope and length
Understand the context and environment in which patients were engaging in chat visits
Identify pain points within the chat visit experience
Identify unique benefits to the chat visit experience
Recruitment
Recruitment criteria
I partnered with our data analysts to capture current patient demographic data so that our participants would be reflective of the overall patient population. I developed a recruitment matrix based on age, sex, race, household makeup, service locations, and experience with chat visits.
Survey
Content
The survey was comprised of 11 questions aimed at understanding patients' expectations and experiences with chat and video visits. Some questions were Y/N in regard to whether their expectations were met, followed by logic-based open text questions. The vast majority were open text and included additional prompts, such as “In 2-3 sentences, describe…”
Discussion topics
First experience with chat
Motivator for scheduling chat visit
Understanding of chat visit
Pain points and/or delights
How the app supports (or not) the chat visit experience
Tools & methods: Generative research, 1:1 interviews, survey, affinity mapping; Zoom, Calendly, Miro, Dovetail
Recruitment strategy
I started with a survey that was sent to 30 individuals on the patient council. At the end of the survey, I also included an invitation to participate in 1:1 interviews to dig deeper into their answers. This invitation included a Calendly link where participants could self schedule.
Example questions:
How have you used the Chat feature in the Nice app?
What are the most common issues or obstacles that you have encountered when using the Chat feature?
How did your Chat visit experience differ from your expectations?
What did you particularly enjoy about your Chat visit?
Interview guide
Example questions:
Walk us through your most recent chat visit. What prompted you to schedule a chat appointment?
Describe what was going on around you at the time of your chat visit. Where did the visit take place?
Tell us about your understanding of chat visits prior to scheduling your first one. What expectations did you have of how the visit would go?
Interview logistics
Observers
Invited key team members (engineers, PMs) to observe interviews
Up to a single observer per interview session
Created dedicated Miro whiteboard to jot down notes, observations, follow-up questions
Shared guidance on appropriate conduct for observers
Open end-of-week debrief for anyone who participated
Note-taking template
I created a Google Sheet note-taking template that provided ample space our Principal Designer to take notes, which then also automatically collated into a final notes matrix.
I also recorded all of the sessions with permission from participants and uploaded them to Dovetail which provided a transcript of each interview.
Research Synthesis
Debrief
After every interview, I debriefed with the Principal Designer on the team. At the end of every week, I hosted an optional debrief with observers.
Qualitative coding
I make it a practice to code as I go, especially with larger generative research projects. After every session, I went through the interview transcripts and began coding, also comparing the notes taken during the debrief.
Affinity mapping
After coding the individual interviews, I began generating themes across interviews in Miro.
Key insights & opportunities
Insights:
Patients value the flexibility, comfort and privacy that Chat visits provide.
“I was at work in an open office and needed the privacy.”
“Honestly it’s nice to not have to get in front of a camera when you aren't feeling great."
Patients who schedule a chat visit are not always expecting a phone call.
“I thought a chat visit would be over text only, but most of them became phone calls instead”
Patients described using Chat for simple issues and Video for complex issues.
Patients expect and report their chat visits as being “quick” and “efficient”
Opportunities:
Provide descriptions for each visit format (chat and video) that help to guide patients to the appropriate format (i.e. simple issues over chat, more complex issues over video).
Prevent new patients from scheduling a chat visit as their initial appointment.
Enhance expectation-setting for the patient by including a “What to expect from your Nice chat visit” embedded in the app experience that includes 1) a direct acknowledgement that their chat visit may turn into a phone call and 2) a section that reminds folks to show up on time for their chat visits and re-iterates the length of the visit.
Consider ways to more formally facilitate phone calls between providers and patients.
Deliverables
Presentation of findings at provider meeting
I worked with stakeholders on our clinical leadership team to identify the most effective and impactful time to share these findings with clinicians. I was invited to join their monthly meeting and shared the results with 50 providers.
As a follow up, I sent out a Calendly link for providers to connect 1:1 to address any questions about the research findings and how their experience may have differed from the patient experience.
Report shared with all-company in Slack
As I established the research function at Nice, I ensured that all research reports were shared company-wide (as appropriate) via Slack in an #insights channel and were also linked to the full report that was kept in our design research library “Nice to Know,” hosted in Dovetail. I ensured that our research repository was well-organized and easily searchable.
Results
“What to expect” guide launched
As a result of this research, our Principal Designer created new guides for both Chat and Video visits, which were launched in May 2023. A follow up survey was slated to be sent to patients in June to assess the impact of this development.
Visit descriptions added
Due to the recommendations provided, our Principal Designer added visit descriptions to the scheduling page on both mobile and web. A plan was made to assess the breakdown of visit types after this launch to see if meaningful impact was made to shift certain visit reasons to the more appropriate format.