Argo Health seeks to improve the lives of people with asthma by creating pathways for better health. Argo uses tech-enabled solutions for easier asthma management, improved adherence and better health outcomes.
The Challenge
Our team entered this project wanting to better understand technology’s role in truly caring for someone’s health. In our research, we learned that anywhere from 30-70% of people with asthma were non-adherent. We also learned more about the complexity of managing asthma - a condition that requires lifestyle and habitual changes every day. Using desk research and initial conversations with doctors to guide our thinking, we entered our research process with two key questions:
What are the gaps between what healthcare providers tell patients to do and how people actually manage asthma?
What does the journey look like for someone who has asthma, and what are some of the biggest pain points and unmet needs along the way?
Research
We completed 22 interviews in a few short weeks-speaking to newly diagnosed and long-term asthma patients, caretakers, nurses, doctors, and pharmacists. We talked to patients and caretakers about their journey with asthma, identifying points of confusion and difficulty. We talked to healthcare providers about their interactions with patients and their approaches to treatment.
We also used cultural probes and online forums to help us empathize and better understand the emotional impact of living with asthma. By having both doctors and patients draw the feeling of an asthma attack, we understood the fear and pain these scary moments truly carried.
Synthesis
We spent over 20 hours synthesizing our research. From this process, we developed three key journey maps and mapped behavioral patterns along a spectrum of non-adherent to very adherent.
Choosing a Leverage Point
Guided by our journey maps and insights, we mapped out the opportunities we saw as we moved the project forward, and created HMWs for ideation. We decided to focus on supporting patients as they lived with their asthma, seeking ways to make preventative actions rewarding and introduce easier asthma management.
An opportunity map visualizes where we should go next
Prototyping
Guided by a How Might We question, we created early prototypes and gained feedback from people with asthma, learning and iterating as the process continued. By getting feedback on low fidelity prototypes (and some wilder ideas) we were able to quickly probe reactions and make discoveries that lead to our core features.
"Oh, so it's a shame lamp?"
- Interviewee
MVP
Our prototyping process helped us prioritize 3 key features in an MVP, which we further explored using Figma. We built a business model that considered the needs of patients, their providers, and their insurers. We continue to iterate on this prototype and test hypotheses today.
While the content on this page is a sample of this project, I am happy to show more via a call.