Dentix
Overview
Maintaining good dental care is an investment in your overall body health as the mouth is an entry point for bacteria to move through the digestive and respiratory systems. However, accidents happen and having the knowledge of what actions to take is crucial and makes a difference between saving and losing a tooth. Severe dental pain, injury, or loss of a tooth can be a painful and stressful experience for anyone; therefore, having a tool that provides dental emergency care resources, can bring ease in those stressful situations.
Problem
More than 800,000 ER visits a year, are for toothaches and other avoidable dental emergencies. However, hospital emergency rooms are not able to do much help when it comes to dental emergencies, leading to the costly hospital fee and painkillers that still require the patients to visit a dentist afterward.
Solution
Create an app that gives knowledge and steps to users on what to do in case of a dental emergency after office hours and be able to find nearby dental providers.
Role
Research, UX & UI Design, Content Design
Time
4 weeks
Tools
Figma, Miro, Notion, Discord, Whimsical, Zoom
Preliminary Research
To create an app that caters to dental emergencies, I first started by looking up current dental apps on the market that have a similar service. Something that all these applications have in common, is providing appointment bookings, 24/7 live chats, local dentist searches, etc. To understand more in-depth the unique services of these apps, I conducted a competitive analysis to discover what users experienced when visiting them.
I recruited participants for the user interviews who either had the general experience of visiting a dentist or had a family member go through a dental emergency.
All participants shared a common pattern with the overall experience when looking for a dentist for regular appointments or a dental emergency. Key insights gathered from the user interviews that helped me empathize with their experiences were:
80% of the participants preferred to find a dentist that’s local to them, has good recommendations from previous patients and has enough years of dental experience. Also has availability for dental emergencies and is able to teach or provide knowledge to their patients about oral health.
The Users
I created two personas to symbolize the type of user who would benefit from the app using the information findings of the research. These individuals are usually someone who:
User flow
I drew up a user flow map to show the core steps the user will take when navigating Dentix that determined the screens needed to add to the wireframes and prototype:
Booking an appointment
Find nearby providers
Looking up symptoms and how to treat them.
Designs
After creating a user flow, I sketched some wireframes to illustrate the flow of the app, taking influence from other booking apps and dental-providing services that were evaluated from the competitive analysis.
The sketches represented the main screens such as:
Log in/ sign up
Home
Providers
Symptoms
Account
Mid-Fidelity Wireframes
Branding and components
Having a dental emergency can be a stressful moment for anyone, so including colors and elements that are friendly, and exude calmness yet have a luxurious overall feel was the goal for the app.
Final Product
Introducing Dentix
Dentix is the one-stop app that provides you with local dental providers ready to help you with your dental emergency where ever you are in the world. Dentix gives you information and easy-to-understand steps to take in all dental injuries. Feel confident in knowing that you’ll be taken care of with just a tap on your phone.
Find a Local Dentist
Whether you are in your hometown or traveling outside the city, Dentix will find you the best experienced dental providers with ready availability to provide you care in any dental emergencies for you and your loved ones.
Look Up Symptoms
Don’t know how what to do when you have a toothache? Dentix provides you with a variety of information to educate you on what type of dental injury you may have and home treatments with detailed instructions to help you feel at ease in those stressful moments.
Testing
After implementing the UI branding and elements of Dentix, the frames were ready for prototype testing.
User Testing
To determine any pain points in my design, I conducted 4 usability tests. Users were able to complete all 4 tasks at 100% which were to create an account or log in, book an emergency appointment, look up symptoms and learn how to treat them, and look up upcoming or past appointments.
During the performance of these tasks by the users, there were a few pain points found which then I revised to improve the app.
Before
After
An emergency and consultation button was added.
Labels at top of the doctor booking screens were added so users know where they are in the app.
The text was made bolder for better visibility.
An “Add to calendar” feature was added after booking confirmation.
The date and time fonts of appointments made were increased.
After
Before
The amount of text on the symptoms screen was reduced.
Menu navigation was added to the “Remedy treatment” screen.
Other remedy options were added for navigation.
After
Before
The “my appointments” button was too light, so a darker color was added for contrast.
Accessibility to upcoming and past appointments can now be reached through the home screen.
The home screen shows what the “upcoming appointment” section would look like if the user does not have any upcoming appointments.
For users to narrow down their selection of providers, I decided to add a “Sort/Filter” option to the providers screen.
Next Steps
To continue to improve this project, in the next steps I would add the following features:
A tracking feature for users to track their symptoms and dental records for reference when visiting the dentist.
Tutorial videos on how to prepare home remedies.
Virtual consultations with dental providers and live chats.
Dentix has a lot of room to grow and develop more functional components in the future, so these features could definitely bring Dentix to compete in the market.
Challenges
Two challenges I faced when designing this MVP is the lack of time available for user testing and keeping the focus on 1-3 important features. However, the feedback received was valuable to the success of Dentix. If given more time, more testing would be conducted.