The Design Thinking Methodology refers to a non-linear iterative process that teams use to understand the users, challenge the assumptions, redefine the problems, and thus, create innovative solutions that hopes to make significant improvement to individuals in society. Each phase of design thinking will be analysed closely in order to provide a better understanding on how each phase play a major role in reducing and resolving issues related to developing the Vaccine Management System (VMS). Below is a breakdown of the five phases in design thinking and how the team plans to approach building this solution:
Empathising is the first step of the Design Thinking and allows for the understanding of the user’s pain points and potential improvements that will need to be developed to enhance the user experience. In order to enhance the user experience, it is important to understand the user, how they feel, and how this system will affect their way of functioning in society. A method to approach this phase requires a need to interact with the users and taking into account their viewpoint on the issue. By viewing the character profile for each of the stakeholders involved, an empathy map was created to provide a visualisation on the user’s attitude and behaviour found below. This will assist the UX Team in revealing any the current user data to support a greater understanding of end users.
Patients (member of public) who are interested in getting vaccinated need to know whether they need to get vaccinated or not, as there is a lot of misleading information that is being shared and doesn't have any information to book for one.
- Patients have not received any COVID-19 vaccine yet either
- Patients will receive two doses of COVID-19 vaccine which means they will have to come back after the first vaccination within the set period of time
- Patients have no knowledge or anything regarding how to get vaccinated
The Healthcare workers need to be treated with the vaccine themselves before assisting patients with their treatment as this will ensure they do not spread the virus any further to provide their assistance.
- Healthcare workers have already been vaccinated before treating others
- Healthcare workers have an understanding of the vaccination procedure
The CTO, directed by the Health Minister, needs to ensure that the team develops the system to be able to effectively support the vaccination rollout because it must be successul in order to accurately communicate vaccination information. This includes to both the end-users, being the public/patients, and those who will be affected by the system, being the healthcare workers.
- The CTO is heavily invested in the development of the VMS, interacting heavily with the system development team to ensure the system communicates the goals set by the Health Minister.
After gathering user information and relevant data, it opens up a better exploration and understanding into the core problems identified by users. The problem definition: “The system to be developed needs to ensure that vaccination points are stocked according to their administering capacity (but not overstocked) and that demand on these points managed.” With the above information, the system developers and designers are able to envision the features, functions, and other elements of the system which will assist in solving the defined problem.
The ideation stage is essential to the creative development of design thinking. By utilising ideation techniques, it will allow for the expansion of the problem space and the motivation of free thinking. Through understanding of potential user pains and gains, the development team are able to look for alternative ways in viewing the problem. With the empathy map developed during the “Empathise Phase” of the design thinking process, illustrates the stakeholder’s emotions and background on the problem.
From the empathy maps, the stakeholder’s point of view can allow for setting the foundations of the idea stage by developing “How Might We (“HMW”) Statements to launch brainstorming of other ideation sessions of the team. Below are some of the HMW statements that will trigger the development team’s ideas on how they can effectively create an end solution to the users.
- How Might We share the information details of COVID-19 vaccine for public member to view?
- How Might We ensure that COVID-19 vaccine is safe to have to the general public?
- How Might We encourage member of public to have COVID-19 vaccine?
- How Might We provide member of public to easily register on our system for COVID-19 vaccine ticket?
- How Might We facilitate vaccination centre to the public?
- How Might We contact the public who has successfully book for COVID-19 vaccine?
- How Might We make sure that the public are eligible to have COVID-19 vaccine before registration?
- How Might We contact the public to come and receive second vaccination after the first one?
- How Might We label them as vaccinated people after they have two doses of COVID-19 vaccine? Certificate?
- How Might We spread the word about the COVID-19 Vaccine?
- How Might We persuade the general public to take the vaccine?
- How Might We organize a faster rollout system?
- How Might We facilitate the demand for the vaccine?
- How Might We inform who is next in line for their vaccinations?
- How Might We encourage effective communication and coordination between the CTO and the system developers?
- How Might We effectively incorporate the goals set by the CTO into development of the system?
- How Might We ensure the CTO communicates the goals set by the health minister to the development team?
- How Might We ensure that the system runs smoothly and accurently conveys the vaccine information so to avoid confusion with the patients and healthcare workers?
- How Might We request feedback from the health minister at various stages of the system development stage to ensure it meets requirements?
The system developers/design will then produce a few inexpensive, scaled-down versions of the application with detailed features found within it. The prototype will continually be tested by health officers including the nurses and doctors, and the testing team that is under the CTO to identify whether the system achieves the best possible solution for the issues acknowledged in the first three stages above. The solution is to create a system that allows the user to view any vaccination points according to the administrating capacity which will be executed within the prototype. Additionally, class diagrams are also designed to better understand the flow and function of the application.
In the testing phase, the system tests along with the potential future users of the application will experiment with the prototype developed. The results outputted during this process will allow the development team to redefine any issues needed and enable a full understanding of the user experience along with their conditions of use.