A high stakes prototype at break neck speed.
hc1 had a huge opportunity under a tight deadline. The Indianapolis healthcare technology company was invited to speak and demo its product at the 2017 HIMSS conference in Orlando. But it was November 2016, hc1 had no tangible product to show, and the event was coming up fast.
At the end of the day, I need the users who are coming to our site to convert. And I knew with Design On Tap, I would get that.
Also in November 2016, hc1 hired Chelsea Yoder to take the reins as Director of Marketing. Her first project was a complete redesign of hc1’s outdated website. She was looking for a team of people with a lot of experience in UX/UI. She wanted them to take the time to really research hc1’s industry, understand its audience and build thoughtful buyer journeys.
Interrupting those first discussions around the website, hc1 execs conveyed the more urgent, important need for a product prototype — fast — but it was Christmastime! When the hc1 and Design on Tap teams returned to their respective offices in January 2017, they had six weeks to concept out the new product’s business rules and design.
The looming deadline, and hc1’s buy-in to Design On Tap’s approach, paved the way for important progress to happen. As hc1 finalized the product’s business and launch plans, Design On Tap was workshopping product designs. “We were trying to build a language around the charts and metrics hc1 provides to clients. At the same time, their data scientists were trying to figure out how to glean and show and use the data in the context of the product,” Joel Smith, DOT Founder & B2B Product Strategist, says.
Team members from both companies made tracks up and down I-65 to each other’s offices, reviewing designs, noodling over decisions — building and testing, building and testing. This sort of steady stream of active collaboration isn’t always predictable and pretty, but it yields progress.
“I liked the very open communication,” hc1’s Malick says. “I would come to them with an idea and someone at Design On Tap would bring a perspective I hadn’t thought about. They helped to guide me. It could be related to user experience, the impact to development timeline — all these parts and pieces put together. Also, Joel didn’t overcommit his team. I really respect that.”
The initial design was completed in three weeks. Build and test, build and test…
On February 2, 2017, Helen Malick landed in Orlando, armed with a fully interactive prototype of the hc1 product. Attendees of the HIMSS conference experienced what it is actually like to intuitively collect and leverage the patient data that hc1 collects. The prototype used a static data set located inside a browser, designed to hand off to engineering for back-end coding.
“February 3. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that date,” Helen Malick, hc1’s EVP of Product, Solutions Consulting and Professional Services, says. HIMSS is the world’s leading healthcare technology conference, bringing together 45,000+ professionals for five days of education, innovation and collaboration to help uncover the promise of health information and technology. Leaders of hc1 wanted to make the most of their chance to break into decision maker’s awareness.
“It felt like the entire Design on Tap team was working only for us. I was able to meet my business objective and present at the conference. Design On Tap was incredibly customer centric. It did give me a ton of peace of mind to know you guys were there.” — Helen Malick