An intuitive concept app for Catalan citizens to schedule COVID vaccines and access information
Vaccines had just been approved, but no one knew how they'd reach people. Based on a speculative brief designed by Irene Pereyra, we created a concept app for the Catalan government where citizens could register, book appointments, and carry proof of vaccination. all of which ended up happening in reality. The focus: designing for people over 65 navigating a digital-only process. Our concept went beyond registration, building a network mechanic around the idea "Spread the vaccine, not the virus" tackling the social connection and the idea that we all could contribute to stop this pandemic.
THE RESEARCH
Where do we fit?
First, let’s understand where our app will fit in the Catalan
Government ecosystem. We analized the digital services for
different sectors (education, social, economy, transport, etc.),
focusing on the health sector, of course. We deep dived into
understanding the existing channels specially those created during
the COVID pandemic.
We created a visual ecosystem of the health services dividing them
in three processes: get information, take action and track status.
All the platforms are categorized depending on their purpose while
some of them served multiple. We concluded our app will be part of
the three sections where they could get information, register and
get their QR codes, and keep track of their vaccination process.
Learning from other countries
By the time we were working in this app, some countries were starting to vaccinate their first group: health professionals and people living in nursing homes. Each country had their own approach. So, competitive analysis was more of an inspiration search, looking at what they were doing, how they were handling this process, what we could learn and add to our app, and what we could improve. We learned a lot from them and features as simple as sharing the app became a main part of our final proposal.
Israel
Argentina
Ireland
UK
China
Israel app
Argentina app
Our main target
We conducted several interviews between different groups of people
including doctors and common citizens to understand their needs
and possible limitations. All these people and interviews informed
our creation of 4 personas: health workers, +65-year-old people,
their sons and daughters, and people in doubt of the vaccine.
During this process we learned that our focus group either felt
confident enough to do the registration themselves or they could
have direct help from someone else to do it for them. So, an
important process was to make it easy for their sons and daughters
to be able to register their parents for their vaccine.
Overloaded Olivia
Job
Runs Coffee Shop
Age
33
Vaccinated Victor
Job
Doctor
Age
35
Doubtful Dolores
Job
Retired teacher
Age
67
IDEATION
The idea behind the concept
We know what our users will need and what to avoid. Now we needed to ideate how to provide it. We based our app around the statement “Spread the vaccine, not de virus”. Our inspiration came from the visuals many communication channels used at the beginning of the pandemic to illustrate how the virus was spreading across the globe, as well as the need of social connections, increased during the pandemic. This guided the visual design and the design of many of the app's features.
Spread the vaccine,
not the virus
Keep people engaged
We wanted to replicate how the virus spreaded around the
population. But this time, we would spread the vaccine by creating
a network which will help people engage and create a sense of
community, all together we can stop the virus. There are three
ways to create and grow your network:
Registering someone else
If you register yourself or someone, those become the first
persons in your network.
Sharing the app
If you share the app with someone, the network of that person and
yours connect.
Proximity detection
When walking down the street, maybe to buy groceries, the app will
detect anyone who also had the app and connect their networks.
In the end, we would have one single network all connected with
the same purpose: Spread the vaccine, not the virus.
Register someone else
Sharing the app
Proximity detection
Ideal flows are not always real
This phase of the design was one of the most challenging with all the different actions and possibilities. Infinite loops made themselves present of course and flows with death ends were an inspiring challenge. On the right, you can see the legend system we used for our user flows. Below you’ll find a simple user flow for growing the network in the app and a more fun and complicated one for how the user would go from registering to getting their final QR code.
Legend system for userflows
Growing network userflow
Userflow for all the process
from registering in the app to getting the final QR code
THE DESIGN
The idea behind the concept
Fast forward we finally jump on design. We created different level
of fidelity wireframes, from sketches to high fidelity and notations
of the different pages needed. We had special focus on the pages
that would be needed for the registration and vaccination process,
included an onboarding process that explained the use of the app,
how to grow your network and where to follow the Catalunya
vaccination status.
Barcelona being Catalunya’s capital and an international city, it
all had to start with language selection:
