Floodlight™ MS
Floodlight™ MS is an FDA-approved, digital medical device aimed at improving the conversation between people living with multiple sclerosis and their healthcare provider.
Context
Brief
Floodlight™ MS started as a tool for clinical studies on Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Participants would come to a research facility multiple times a week over a period of time and take some tests on the Floodlight™ MS app under the supervision of a researcher. The data collected was then displayed within the app and on a separate portal, to show the progression of MS over time.
In 2020, Roche decided to create a public version of Floodlight™ MS and by 2021, an MVP was launched both as a standalone app and as API components.
I joined the Floodlight™ MS team as a product designer at the beginning of 2022.
Core team
Yael Olivo - Product designer
Christin Kreml - Project manager
Jessica Camacho - UX/UI designer
Grace Nelson - Localisation manager
Jean Philippe Guyon - Product manager
Geraint Davies - Behaviour designer
Dario Motti - Evidence Lead
Gladys Resellmo - User researcher
Challenges
Moving from a clinical study to an unsupervised environment highlighted some important challenges, both on the patient and healthcare provider side. It also required many different teams (medical, data, engineering, translation, product, regulatory and legal) to work together and communicate.
Contextualise data
Healthcare providers could access patient data on the portal, but they lacked important context. A lower score on a test could be caused by several reasons beyond cognitive degeneration, such as loss of sleep or physical pain.
I worked with the medical team to compile a list of symptoms and other relevant information that would help healthcare providers better understand the data. We co-designed a journal feature to log in physical status, mood, and symptoms.
Improve completion
Usability testing and user interviews revealed that one of the biggest barriers to completing the tests was that patients did not perform the required activities correctly because they did not fully understand the instructions they were given.
I redesigned the instruction flow at the beginning of each activity and proposed video instructions with clear examples of how it should be performed.
Improve planning and decision-making
Floodlight™ MS is a regulated, data-driven medical device, translated into 12 languages. Many specialised teams had to work together and asynchronous decision-making had proven very challenging.
I worked with our project manager to put together a proposal for in-person, quarterly workshops with representatives of each team, which averaged 15 to 20 participants. To maximise productivity, we created a time-boxed structure and introduced design thinking activities with clear desired outcomes.
Methods & Tools
User journey
User flows
Interactive prototyping
UI design
Workshop facilitation
Design system
Figma
Miro
Protopie
A-ah
Outcomes
Healthcare providers responded very positively to being able to have more context to patient data. However, more work needs to be done to encourage patients to fill their journals regularly.
Video instruction tested extremely well, bringing the percentage of users who understood how to perform the activity from 40% to 90%.
We reduced the time for decision-making across teams from an average of two weeks to three days.
Learnings
FDA-approved digital devices face unique challenges. Changes to the device’s intended use (for example, from data visualisation to data interpretation), can trigger a resubmission for approval, which is costly and takes a minimum of 90 days.
Testing with real users is imperative when working with people who have some degree of disability, which in the case of MS can be both physical and cognitive.
Translations are a huge factor that greatly impacted our workflow: working closely with the localisation team was key to avoiding delays in releases.
