Medica, a VUI-based Alexa skill for cancer patients.
In this article, we are going to capture our process of creating a voice design project named ‘Medica’. She is a health assistant for cancer patients.
Problem statement
About two-thirds of Americans have prescribed medication and diet plans. Approximately 50% of people do not take their medications and nutrition plans as prescribed. This is a phenomenon known as “medication non-adherence” (MNA).
Medication non-adherence leads to 125,000 preventable deaths each year, and about $300 billion in avoidable healthcare costs.
All this happens even if health providers have a medication ecosystem (Mobile/Watch apps etc.) Reference — https://www.pillsy.com/articles/medication-adherence-stats
So, We build personal health care assistant Medica to serve patients.
Goal of Medica
Medica’s goal is to help patients to book an appointment with doctors, capture patient symptoms, tell meal plans and recipes for the day, add fruits, vegetables, and groceries to the shopping list and she can set reminders to (Eat, Hydrate, Supplements, Exercise, Sleep).
Personas
Rio / 44 years / Male
Rio is in his first stage of cancer which can be cured with medication and diet. But Rio often forgot to follow his medication and diet plans. Missing medication and diet cause more health problems to Rio. So, He started using a personal health care assistant “Medica”.
Medica / 24 years / Female
Medica is a helpful, easy to approach, and caretaking person. She is not too playful, not too serious. She is very attentive and punctual. We can count on her when it comes to caretaking.
Use Case
Let’s focus on some key use cases for using Medica.
- Book Appointments (Cancel, Reschedule)
- Capturing symptoms
- Ask for Meal Plan and Recipes
- Add fruits, vegetables, grocery to the shopping list
- Set Reminders (Eat, Hydrate, Supplements, Exercise, Sleep)
Sample Dialog
Now the conversation stuff. Get a pen and paper or use your Mac notes and start writing a few sample dialogs. Let me show you how I have written a few sample dialogs between Patients and Medica for ‘booking appointment’.
Example: Scenario, Rio is booking an appointment for his next visit.
User: Book an appointment with Dr. Marlin on 15th June 2020 at 11 am.
Alexa: Sure, Let me check Dr. Marlin’s availability.
Alexa: Dr. Marlin is not available on 15th June 2020. Would you like to check other doctor’s availability?
User: Yes, please
Alexa: Dr. John Cena is available on your time. Can I schedule an appointment with him?
User: Okey
Alexa: Your appointment with Dr. John Cena is confirmed on 15th June 2020 at 11 am.
User: Thanks
Alexa: Is there anything else I can assist you with?
User: No thanks
We have used the Wizard of Oz (WoZ) methodology to test the conversation over the phone call.
High-level User flow
We have covered the different directions of a dialog flow and conditions while designing this user flow.
Voice Flow
We have used Voiceflow to build and test our ZERO UI “Medica Skill”.
Testing
Let’s check how the different use cases of Medica works. For testing let’s assume Rio is an existing user of Medica.
Scenario 1: Booking an appointment
Here we are capturing the information like date, time, doctor’s name for further reference.
Users may book an appointment by giving all the information at one short like the above example. Or, give information one by one like the below example. However, Medica is capable enough to handle different situations.
Scenario 2: Get to know the meal plan
The meal plan will be prescribed by nutrition which will be stored in the database.
Scenario 3: Capture symptoms
Capturing the symptoms daily will help the doctors to analyze the patient’s health condition.
Scenario 4: Add fruits and vegetables to the shopping list
In this scenario, we are cross-checking the shopping list to avoid duplicate entries on the database. For example, if any item is already added to the shopping list we are intimating the user like below
Conclusion
The way we interact with technology is changing every day. As smart home devices, wearables, cars, etc. all these devices become more smarter and connected. This is where we are started to create new interaction models that no longer be keyboards or screens. In this era, voice technology is making it possible for users to interact with devices more naturally and intuitively. “Voice is the future of brand Interaction and customer experience”.
Hope you enjoyed reading this article. If you feel this is informative, you can give some clap 😇.
