Fabienne Maume
Responsive onboarding for dementia caregivers
Designing an interactive and experience-based employee training for healthcare workers caring for elders with dementia
Project Breakdown
This design project was part of the Learning Experience Design certificate program at York University. Its aim was for us to work in close collaboration with a real client and develop in-house training modules for them. Before graduating from the program, our team got hired by the company to finish and implement the modules for them.
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Each of us designed one module for our client and went through one full cycle of iteration. To wrap-up the project, we combined all of our designs and integrated the training into the company's LMS. I've documented the design process of my module here
Process shaped by Design Methods
Meeting our Stakeholders
To familarize ourselves with the scope of the project and get to know the people involved, we scheduled our kick-off meeting. We were introduced to the project, set up a communication plan and inquired about the business goals and constraints.
Meeting our Target Audience
We then met with our end users and the managers responsible for training new employees to gather insight on the pain points of the current onboarding. It was important for us to hear about their needs and frustrations from them, instead of making assumption about our target group or letting other stakeholders speak for them.
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With the observations we gathered, we created an empathy map to help us step into the shoes of our users.
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Personas
Because we aimed to keep our target audience front and centre during each design decision, we created two user personas which embody their thoughts, goals and frustrations.
Our primary persona is Rachel, a psychology student with an interest in entering the healthcare sector. She is new to dementia care, but very familiar with e-learning. She greatly values the impact she has on the residents and hopes for the onboarding to prepare her to respond to dementia-related behaviour.
Our secondary persona is Lauren, a mother of three whose busy schedule leaves little room for extensive training. Because she has concentration difficulties when accessing content online, she wishes for shorter modules with elements of microlearning. Her main goal is to build stronger connections with the residents with the help of experience-based and person-centered activities.
Based on our user research and its visualization with the personas, we identified three problems with the current dementia onboarding: length, interactivity and relevance.
The Problem
The Memory Care staff at the retirement home struggles to apply the content of the current dementia basics and dementia-related behaviour training modules to their work with residents because of the length of the modules and the disconnect between learning and work.
Our Solution
Our solution should deliver a comprehensible and condensed way for newly-hired staff to provide a person-centered care approach in order to promote stronger connections and more empathy towards the residents' dementia-related behaviours.
User Journey Map
We then continued to map out our users' learning experience journey to give us a better understanding of their actions, thoughts, frustrations and goals as they move through the product.
Design Trade-offs
As we entered the ideation phase, we focused on bridging the gap between our users' needs and our stakeholders' business goals.
After meeting with the marketing executive and reviewing the brand guide, we aligned our vision with the company's branding and designed the following style guide. Compiling this information provided us with a framework for our visuals and got us thinking about the kind of language and elements we wanted to include early in our design process.
Brainstorming
We then got together as a team to specify the requirements of our design. During this stage, we included the end users and managers. We used Mural to brainstorm collaboratively, seeing as the we were working from three different countries.
Prototyping
Once the design requirements were set and in line with the observations we made during our inquire phase, we began assembling our first prototype using Articulate Rise 360 and Articulate Storyline.
Evaluating with end users
Through live usability tests during which our target audience moved through the prototype, we pinpointed the following areas of improvement of our design:
Evaluating with project manager
We then ran the adjustments by our client and got her feedback after another round of iteration.
Design of Training Handbook
To sustain learning and bridge the gap between the old and new training modules, we pitched a learning experience handbook to our stakeholders. Based on our research, staff members had trouble applying what they had learned on a regular basis. Our solution was to provide them with a collection of resources and strategies for longterm learning.
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I took on this task and met with the managers, end users and marketing team to design the graphics and content. A few sample pages can be seen below.
Last Steps
We then integrated the feedback we got into our prototype and prepared for pilot testing and our project closure meeting. We also worked with our client to launch a learning campaign to spark engagement and spread the word about the new onboarding experience.
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Because the finished training modules are now officially part of the company's in-house onboarding, we unfortunately do not have the rights over the finished product.
Personal Takeaways
