Planning research for a clinic check-in
Before interviewing anyone for the Check In App, I planned who to talk to, what to ask and how to ask it.
Plan interviews that would show me what frustrates people about clinic check-in, before designing anything
Ask about a real moment, not an opinion.
The prompt from my Google UX Design Certificate was broad: design an app and a responsive website that let patients check in at their family doctor's office and answer health screening questions. Before interviewing anyone, I spent time deciding who to talk to and what I needed to learn.
Who. I wanted a wide range: teens through people in their 60s, across Southern California, with and without insurance, of any gender, and including people with disabilities or mental health needs. My hunch was that serving everyone would mean a simpler product, not a feature-heavy one.
What. I wrote down five pain points I suspected and wanted to test:
- Wait times
- Repetitive questions
- Questions people don't know how to answer
- Questions that feel uncomfortable
- Questions people don't understand
How. The script opened by explaining the project, confirming that answers would be de-identified, and asking for consent to record. For each pain point, I asked people to recall a real moment: "Imagine you got to a question you didn't understand. What were your immediate thoughts? What did you do next?"
Recruiting. I kept the invite casual: a 10–15 minute chat about waiting rooms and health forms, with a self-paced form as a backup for anyone whose schedule didn't fit. Responses would stay confidential.
A pilot. Before the first interview, I sent the script to a friend and asked for feedback on the questions and structure. I'd also considered a short intro video for the self-paced form, but since I mainly wanted to talk to people face to face, I skipped it.
The landscape. I looked at existing check-in products, including Quest Diagnostics and Breeze, to see what patients were already used to. I also looked at Otto, a check-in platform for vet clinics. Vet clinics have waiting rooms too.
What worked
- Writing pain points down first. It gave every question in the script a job.
- Consent and privacy up front. Explaining de-identification at the start set expectations before asking personal health questions.
- Two ways to take part. The self-paced form gave busy people another way to say yes.
What didn't
- An overcomplicated first script. My first plan had people answer every question several times, once per recent job, to compare experiences with and without insurance. It was too much, so the final template asked each question once.
- Broad prompt, broad goals. Aiming at "everyone" made it hard to focus. I didn't realize my questions needed sharpening until I was already interviewing.
- Older recruits declined. The older people I invited said no, so my sample skewed toward people in their 30s.
Ask about a real moment, not an opinion.
A broad prompt makes it tempting to start designing right away. But "patients" covers everyone from a nervous teenager to a retiree with low tech literacy, and I didn't want to guess which of them I was designing for.
Writing down my guesses before the interviews gave me something to check them against. Most held up. But the biggest finding wasn't on my list.