Tackling Health at Home: A Digital Solution

How a digital health startup used design to build an app that empowers users

Lykon, a digital health startup based in Berlin, has made access to actionable, personalized health information their mission. They reached out to Goodpatch in May of this year to help them transform their health dashboard and design a valuable mobile solution. This was not the first time we’d worked with the Lykon team. In 2015 we designed their web dashboard, a project that proved to be a great precursor to our new challenge.

Put simply, Lykon facilitates home blood and DNA testing for their customers’ personalized health strategy. With just the app, a few drops of blood, or a cheek swab for a DNA test, you can clearly see your blood levels, genetic traits for diet and exercise, in addition to scientific recommendations based on your personal results.

Designathon: From Challenge to User Testing in 4 days

We kicked things off with a 4-day designathon. Our goal was to create a first product vision prototype that we could then test with a diverse group of current Lykon users. This first concept prototype needed to incorporate a motivating experience: one that would not only help users better understand the results of their blood tests and current health, but that also inspired them to change their behavior in both the short and long term.

Results

After an iteration sprint and multiple rounds of in-depth user testing with Lykon’s current users, we identified the personal plan experience and the visual language of the app as key areas of refinement. Ultimately, we wanted to keep the app design simple for users, while balancing the design complexity of displaying different health metrics.

With this in mind, we structured the app into 2 parts: testing, where users see their blood results and learn which biomarkers are in or out of range; and planning, where users can see how their test results translate into a personalized roadmap to better health.