ResMed: New Setup Wizard and Native Mobile App Feature

Problem

ResMed Positive Airway Pressure (PAP) patients were not using their device for the minimum number of nights during their first 90 days to meet requirements for insurance coverage. I was asked to run a usability testing study on both a newly designed onboarding flow and device use tracking feature designed for the main ResMed native mobile app. I needed to discover if the designs increased motivation to engage with therapy and if any changes needed to be made.

Business Goal

Increase PAP therapy engagement by patients in the first 90 days.

Study Duration
4 weeks

Study Presented
06/21/2022

Company
ResMed

Cross Functional Team Member
Product Manager (also designed tested features)

Methodology
Qualitative Usability Study

Impact

Based on qualitative feedback from study participants, I made 3 recommendations to improve the onboarding and device usage flows.

There were 6 main findings that I communicated to the product team that either confirmed that designs were effective at onboarding and communicating device usage in the first 30 days with PAP therapy or were not effective and needed improvement.

As a result of my recommendations and confirmation of effective designs, implementation of the new onboarding and PAP device usage tracking flows resulted in a 2% increase in patient engagement with PAP therapy in the first 90 days, meeting the business goal.

Research

Based on PAP therapy industry trends, internal discussions by stakeholders, UX team, and developers, an onboarding to PAP therapy using ResMed’s native mobile app and PAP device usage tracking flows were designed by a UX Designer who was in training to be a Product Manager.

The onboarding flow was meant to be used by ResMed PAP therapy patients days before or the day of the first night of therapy. As patients used their PAP devices, they would be notified and encouraged at four time points within the first 90 days.

I put together a comprehensive research plan that included the study objective, research questions, interview questions, usability testing procedure, and participant recruiting goals. I tracked participant recruiting progress by creating a custom spreadsheet.

I received a list of around 100 ResMed device users who were in their first 90 days of therapy. After responses and successful sessions, N=7 patients participated in the study.

I began the session with asking background questions related to their PAP therapy. Then I had participants complete tasks for 4 time points during therapy using the onboarding flow and then the device use tracking feature:

  1. Day 0

  2. Day 1

  3. Day 10

  4. Day 30

I affinity mapped the qualitative data I collected from the 7 participants, grouped into findings, and interpreted insights that I documented in a formal deck presentation.

However, I ran into a problem during the recruitment phase of study. PAP therapy is notoriously unpopular, and only those patients who were engaged with their therapy participated. That meant that I didn’t reach our target audience- patients who were not motivated to engage with therapy. Due to deadline constraints, I could not extend the study to recruit additional participants.

I decided the best course of action was to provide feedback on the designs tested with participants- what they found helpful and what could be improved.

What I Learned

This was a career-changing study for me. I grew a ton!

  • I learned how to create a much more comprehensive study plan, including basing interview questions and tasks from research questions, which addressed the study objective

  • I learned that I needed a specific strategy for recruiting participants who were not motivated to use a product:

    • Next time, I plan to reach out to mentors and colleagues to understand how to better recruit hard to recruit participants

  • I learned what it was like to deliver bad news to a Product Manager:

    • “Unfortunately, only motivated participants responded, and I can’t tell you if this design increases motivation for patients who are disengaged with PAP therapy.”