mGAME
Context
mGAME was a 3-term DALI Lab project that partnered with Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center’s Orthopedic department. It stands for maximizing Goal Attainment, Motivation, and Expectations and aims to promote patient recovery by encouraging them to set SMART goals.
I worked on mGAME during my senior winter at Dartmouth alongside two other developers, three designers, and one project manager. When I was rolled onto the project, it was in its second term and much of the app’s design and development were well underway. The primary goal of the term was to expand upon the functionality built in the first term and to begin the research and design for the second half of the project. This was my first DALI project that had a working MVP by the time I rolled onto the project. This revealed some of the challenges with building upon pre-existing code and design. Sometimes it’s not possible to ask the original developer or designer their intent, so you have to investigate why things are the way they are, and if it makes sense to change them. Depending on the scope of the project and the timing of your entry, you might be forced to adapt to the design and codebase that already exists, even if it’s less optimal. This adaptability is an invaluable skill to bring to any project, and it’s a skill that I’ve relied on as a software developer at Epic.
The Problem
After orthopedic treatment, the recovery process prioritize patients' pain management over their personal passions or goals. This approach can result in patients focusing solely on their pain and neglecting the impact their medical conditions have on their ability to carry out their wants and needs. There are no existing tools that address this problem, which makes it challenging for healthcare providers to develop the optimal treatment plan that takes into account their patients' passions and motivations. The goal of this project was to build a web and mobile application that incorporates a patient's personal goals into the medical treatment process. By providing a platform for patients to identify and pursue their passions, mGAME hopes to empower patients to take an active role in their own healthcare journey. This approach can help patients feel more engaged, motivated, and invested in their treatment, which can lead to better health outcomes and a more satisfying patient experience.
The Solution: Goal Development Intervention (GDI)
The application consists of two main components: the goal development intervention (GDI) and the goal tracking intervention (GTI). The GDI helps guide patients in developing a goal that is related to their passion. The GTI then helps patients track their progress towards their goal and provides them with progress visualizations and notifications to keep them motivated.
Below is the first section of the GDI component, which identifies the primary and secondary body parts that are causing them pain and prompts them to indicate their level of pain using a slider.
The Solution: GDI SMART Goals
Sections 2 and 3 of the GDI survey utilize the Smart Framework to help patients set SMART goals (i.e., specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound).
The Solution: Goal Tracking Intervention (GTI)
The Goal Tracking feature is designed to help patients monitor their progress towards their goals and stay on track. The home page is where users quickly view and track their progress towards their goal. It displays a clear and concise description of the user's goal, a summary of the checkpoints they set to achieve their goal, and a progress bar depicting how much of their goal they have achieved thus far. These features provide users a clear understanding of what they are working towards and what additional steps they need to attain their goal.
The Solution: GTI Weekly Check-In
Patient progress towards their goals is tracked through weekly check-ins. The four-question survey asks patients to confirm if they have completed any of their checkpoints, rate their weekly progress, and reflect on their effort to achieve their goal that week. Optionally, users can also reflect on how their progress made them feel and how they wanted to direct their focus in the next week.
The Solution: GTI Home
The feature includes a graph that displays the progress of the patient's goal over time. The graphs make it simple for patients to see their progress at a glance.
My Contribution
I was a developer on this project its second term, so much of the term was dedicated to user testing and enhancing the GDI functionalities and developing GTI functionalities. Aside from participating in product design meetings, I worked primarily on the front-end to create graphs using React data visualization libraries and improve the UI of the GTI survey.