Medminder PLus

Medminder Plus is a smart pill dispenser app and companion smartwatch system for helping caretakers and elderly patients monitor and track their medications. The Medminder Plus app and the Medminder Plus One wearable are conceptual additions to the product ecosystem of the Medminder automatic pill dispenser, created as part of an interface prototyping course at Georgia Tech in 2017.

Low-Fidelity Mockup

This project began with a prompt to develop a low-fidelity mockup of an app which would pair with the MedMinder smart pill dispenser for elderly adults. I used Basalmiq to create quick proofs-of-concept for the app’s layout and important information to display to the user.

Persona

My next step in this process was to develop a persona of a target user. Following some research and interviews I developed the following persona of a prototypical Medminder Plus user: a person serving as a caretaker of elderly patients using the MedMinder pill dispenser.

Walkthrough

This medium-fidelity app prototype, created using Adobe XD, was developed to explore potential layout, interactions, and functionalities for the Medminder Plus app and provide a platform for user testing. A clickthrough version can be found here.

The opening interactions with this prototype involve opening the app by tapping the Medminder Plus icon, confirming that the logged-in account is the one we want to access, and bringing up the app’s main menu. The Menu screen is the navigational hub that users will come back through to access all of the relevant sections of the prototype.

The Caretaker Profile page allows the user to set their own contact information for setup and emergency purposes, while the Patient Profile section allows them to set the phone, address, and physician information of each patient.

The Medication Schedule feature, which can be accessed from both the menu and the patient profile screen, allows the user to edit the time Saul should take his Thatxitol by touching the dropdown arrow and checking the afternoon slot. The statistics page, accessible via any “SEE STATISTICS” button, shows a graph of the Johnsons’ rate of success in remembering their medication at the appropriate time.

The Refill Prescription feature is the deepest in the app, allowing users to expand the Thaxitol menu item via dropdown and edit the medication dosage from 135 mg to 225 mg. The user also has the option to order Saul’s refill for delivery to the pharmacy shown on the screen via the “ORDER REFILL” button. The user can then cancel or confirm the order via the dialog box, and upon pressing “ORDER” is shown a confirmation dialog.

The last two navigable screens of the prototype are the Emergency Contacts and Settings pages, which give the user examples of content which would appear in each feature page.

Medminder Plus one: companion Watch Prototype

The next phase of this project was to create a smartwatch-like companion to the MedMinder smart pill dispenser and app. I began by first creating a mood board for what I wanted to accomplish aesthetically with the watch, taking inspiration from smooth, unobtrusive, simple designs that utilized standout, contrasting colors as highlights in their otherwise minimal appearances.

While the Medminder Plus app was made to help caretakers of elderly patients manage their medications, the Medminder Plus One watch was designed for use by the patients themselves. As a complement to its aesthetic minimalism, the watch’s function remains minimal as well - its two purposes are to tell the time and to alert the patient of when to take their medications.

The watch alerts patients before, during, and after the medication times set in the app. Each alert type has a corresponding color and LED-lit button to help the user differentiate between the different types of alerts with multiple signifiers. The buttons themselves are rounded and protruding, as opposed to being flat, to better accommodate the capabilities of patients with reduced manual dexterity to depress and operate controls of this size.

The Medminder Plus One watch was designed, modeled, and rendered using Fusion 360.