Changing my Idea, and Re-Framing my Design Question

After some thinking, I have decided to change the direction that my project is going in.

I realised that making an app for first-time parents turn out to be more of an advice app, rather than a healthcare app, so I wanted to try something new.

I’ve been mulling it over for a couple of weeks now, and asked Paul his opinion yesterday, and he likes my new idea, so that solidified it for me.

New Direction

My new plan is to make an IBS app. This app will help users that experience anxiety when speaking to people (mainly professionals) in person about their symptoms. IBS has such a stigma around it, and can be seen as quite a taboo subject. Many people assume that it’s just something that old people experience, but actually, people of all ages can suffer from it.

I have quite a few friends suffering from IBS, and I know that most of them get embarrassed talking about it with others. It took one of them three years of experiencing IBS symptoms to work up the courage to actually see a medical professional about it!

I don’t want people to have to suffer in silence anymore, just to stave off any possible embarrassment. So, I thought that, for this project I could design an IBS app that would be a safe space for patients to go to for advice, as well as some help with tracking symptom causes. This would come from live, direct message chat boxes with a professional.

New Design Question

After re-doing the Frame Your Design Challenge, I have successfully thought of a new design question to think of solutions for.

My new design question is as follows:
“How can I design an app to help users understand, and control, their IBS symptoms in a stress-free manner?”

This app will be geared towards IBS sufferers that are ages 15-40.

I know that this seems like a large age-group, but I think this is who it would benefit the most. Young people are the ones that tend to be most embarrassed by their IBS, and people approaching their middle ages might feel the same if they have only recently been diagnosed. IBS also occurs mostly within this age range, so I thought it was fitting to make the design suitable for this broader range.

Thoughts:

I am looking forward to continuing on with this new direction, and seeing where it takes me.

This is a topic that I feel a lot more passionate about, and that I think I could do a lot more with.

After researching IBS, I will conduct some user research to get a better understanding of what users might actually need from the app. I also plan to carry out a few competitor analyses to see what some leading IBS self-help apps are doing.