HART- Fighting heart attacks
HART is a personal project where I explored the intersection of healthcare, UX, and psychology. Inspired by a real-world problem, I applied design thinking to create a solution for at-risk heart attack patients. The app focuses on making users accountable for their health by encouraging exercise, while also incorporating incentivization techniques to motivate continued engagement. Through research, I identified key insights that shaped the design, ensuring it addressed both psychological and behavioral factors critical for health improvement. The project challenged me to balance different roles and perspectives, ultimately leading to a solution that aligns with both healthcare goals and user needs.
Team : Nidhi Kothari
Duration : 6 weeks
Problem area
Lack of awareness amongst people and unpredictable nature of heart attacks delaying the medical procedure for patients and risking their lives.
(This was the problem area which I had identified before conducting user research)
Overview
A few years back, one of my relatives' expired due to a heart attack. The previous night, he visited a local clinic because of gastric issues. The fact of him thinking of it as a gastric (heartburn) issue instead of a heart attack shocked me. This was one from the 3/4 similar incidents I heard during that time.
All of these situations make heart attacks more scary and deadly.
“Pain due to excursion” and “heaviness in chest due to gastric issues” were things which people assumed heart attack warning signals to be. Result was delayed medical help
1. Empathising
I started with primary study i.e. doing online research and reading articles to get an idea of the entire heart attack situation. Further, I spoke to medical practitioners i.e. cardiologists and medical students, heart attack survivors and with families who lost their members to heart attacks.
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This interaction gave me an opportunity to know the what, how and why(s) of a heart attack according to people. Their opinions regarding it were deciphered after the interview.
2. Defining users
All the research data was then thematically analyzed to understand and debrief the insights.
Here I used the “Affinity mapping” technique to do the same.
(Writing insights on post its)
(1st stage of affinity maps completed)
(2nd stage of affinity maps- Grouping)
Following are the insights derived from the affinity map:
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Till date, most heart patients were in their 50s or 60s. But recently, changing lifestyles has made this a health threat for all age groups above 20.
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Only 1 out of 6 patients experienced symptoms prior to the heart attack day. This response was contradictory to what I found out in primary research. Not to forget that chances of patients not remembering or neglecting the symptoms can be a reason for this.
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There is a huge range of symptoms which can be seen on the day of heart attack. Also patients can have either 1 or also 2/3 of them together. Thus, it cannot be predicted by any one or two “Most likely to occur symptoms”
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Not all people who got heart attacks without experiencing prior symptoms were suffering from LTDs (Long term diseases) i.e. BP or diabetes. This shows that predicting attack risk and type based on history or any prevalent disease type cannot be accurate enough. Loopholes for exceptional cases are many!
Precautions for patients after heart-attack were only taking medicines. On asking questions about the same, all of the 4 survivors said the same thing
“We take medicines. That’s it”. Although change in lifestyle and exercise were advised by doctors, patients didn’t seem to seriously act upon those suggestions.
Target User group:
Users of this solution will include every individual past the age of 20 years since changing lifestyle has made heart attack risk prone to almost every adult.. It will thus include patients with no prior heart attack history and At-risk patients as well.
Personas:
I now had a brief idea about my users. So, in the next stage, I created 3 personas (of people with different age groups and different professions) which would be best, representing my user group.
Revised problem area:
After analysing the insights carefully, the problem area now changed to:
Unpredictable nature of heart attacks, symptom ignorance and not following precautions (if already a heart patient) resulted in life-risk for patients with no attack history and prior attack history respectively.
3. Ideation
After going through the interview insights, I found 2 interesting areas to work which lacked user focus and were really important to decrease risk of heart attacks & maintain heart health.
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Predicting/ diagnosing heart attack prior
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Precautions after treatment
Solution for predicting/diagnosing heart attacks prior :
I realized that it was merely not possible for the users to understand the first problem without using technology (Predicting/ diagnosing heart attack prior) since all the prior changes (prior to the heart attack) were happening inside their body and no proper outer indication for it will always be there for them to detect.
I started researching more about the topic and came across a non-invasive, inexpensive device invented by Mr. Akash Manoj. Thus, with the use of technology, the first problem area could be solved.
ABOUT THE DEVICE:
Wearable technology:
The device which I have mentioned in the solution is invented and patented by Mr. Akash Manoj. At present the device is in the form of a silicone patch which can be worn around the wrist or on the chest for At-risk patients. This device uses the cardiac biomarker FABP3 and alerts patients 6 hours before getting a heart attack. Mr. Akash Manoj, in his TED-ED talk mentioned about making 2 variants of this device
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Which gives digital announces of the biomarker level
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Simpler version for people in rural areas which simply vibrates to alert
He is currently working and collaborating with companies to make it a wearable device.
My current focus is on developing an application for the first product variant.
Solution for precautions after treatment :
And for the second problem, if the users try hard to maintain a healthy life and continue their precautions, their chances of getting their next heart attack decreases. And this problem could definitely be worked upon by users.
I then thought that,
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What is the reason behind not following precautions even when users know that their life can be in jeopardy?
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What reason can drive them when even life risk is not pushing them to change their lifestyle?
I listed down all the reasons behind people not taking precautions seriously and noticed that one main reason could possibly be no measurable evidence of getting healthier ( or heart getting healthy) . One of the main reasons I personally can’t carry on an exercise routine is seeing no measurable difference in my body. I presumed that the same can be applied here too.
If users are able to measure and track the changes happening when they follow precautions, they are more likely to abide by it seriously. For eg. I am more cautious with my phone usage when I see the battery health of my phone deteriorating (from 90% to 88% etc.).
Thus, I thought that
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Gamification and
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Monetization
can be the 2 rewards which can drive users to use the app for following precautions and gain value.
Features proposed
Future thoughts about hart : One of the features I would like hart to have is the option of user's doctor to set goals for him and have an access to his patient's heart health and precautions schedule. This is just a perspective I would like to add in the future
My Learnings
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Being a very personal topic to talk about, conducting interviews with patients/family members was very tricky. Questions had to be formed in a way which wasn't too personal and yet was insightful. Also, getting in touch with cardiologists to interview them was very hard because they literally belong to a very busy profession full of responsibility. One of my teacher's then helped me to form proper questions and suggested that I could book appointments with cardiologists in order to interview them. Understanding the trick and need to form proper questions is what I learned here.