Social Banking Experiences

What is Social Banking?

Social Banking enables customers of banks to conduct their banking activities through social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.  Social Banking is a new initiative started by banks to cater to the current online behaviors of today’s young generation who spend a big chunk of their daily time on social media sites especially on their mobile phones.

Considering that banking is a industry where change is slow, social banking is a new bold attempt to attract the young generation.  But is this new initiative really catching on with the young generation?

We will look at few examples of Social Banking in India, the current mindset of customers towards Social Banking and barriers, and few steps to design a social banking experience.

Examples of Social Banking in India

1. Download a bank’s mobile app to create an account by taking a selfie and enter few relevant details including the customer’s national identity information to create a bank account in few minutes.
2. Pay utility bills through Facebook Messenger.
3. Meet bank employees virtually through video branch services.
4. Follow a bank’s Twitter account to pay a friend.
5. Interact with a robot at the bank branch regarding information on banking transactions.
6. UPDATE: Example of a mailer inviting credit card applications with the promise of efficient and quick interaction through a chatbot (mailer received on July 15, 2017).
   

Current mindset of customers towards Social Banking

Ideally, this new initiative is targeted towards the audience segment who spend a great time on social media platforms. However, what is worrying that the youngsters see social banking as a cool feature rather than a transactional channel like the bank’s mobile app or website.

Main barriers against adoption of Social Banking

Comfort and convenience with existing digital channels
Today’s young generation are comfortable accessing  their own bank’s mobile or website or with third-party payment apps such as Paytm or Phonepe. The above digital channels are easy to use and their user experience is high thus retaining these existing customers.

Perceived view of social media platforms
Customers see social media platform as a place to share information at their pace surrounded by friends whereas banking is perceived to be a private and secure activity conducted in a safe and secure environment.  A banking activity is thought to be important whereas activities on social media platforms are seen as fun and not important.

Lack of awareness with existing customers
Banks market social banking as a new cool feature  but its recall value is very limited. Two of my friends, who are regular users of Facebook were not sure whether their bank offered such services even though their banks did advertise on their website, which included an interactive demo.

Steps to design a Social Banking experience

Banks see social banking as a new way to engage with the younger generation in addition to their transactional activities with the existing touchpoints. Banks might not have full control over their social banking experiences as it is dependent on the specific social media’s platform’s user experience. So, customer experience is partially impacted by the specific social media’s platform and the integration of the bank’s service with the social media platform. Hence, there is a high possibility that the customer experience of social banking will be definitely fragmented.

Sharing steps below to design a better social banking experience:

1. Zoom out to learn about the customer’s daily life activities rather than focusing on the specific banking customer journey.
2. Learn about the customer’s social media behaviors.
3. Learn about the customer’s current usage of bank’s touchpoints.
4. Implement gamification and behavior change techniques to help customers to be at ease when conducting banking activities with their preferred social media platforms.
5. Monitor the usage on the social media platforms and prototype as necessary with new ideas till the customers find it easy to switch between their current touchpoints and preferred social media platforms to conduct banking activities. 

Time to shift to an engaging conversation

Current usage of digital touchpoints enable the banks to save time and resources but risk seeing the customer as a disparate set of data points rather than engaging them at a human level to know about their financial needs in their life. With the introduction of social banking, banks have a good opportunity to shift the transactional nature of digital interactions into more meaningful conversations with their customers.

Encountering Constraints in Experiences

When customers encounter services daily, they often face constraints during their service experiences. Constraints help organizations by providing boundaries to their products and services regarding what is possible and not possible. However, organizations fail to realize the impact of the constraints on the customer’s experience with a product or service.

I am sharing my experience of visiting a print store and the constraints encountered below.

From the above experience, a closer look at the above constraints reveals that the organizations may not be able to control the intended outcome as per the customer’s expectations.

Organizations can minimize the negative outcome to a great extent by prototyping the “common” and “outlier” use cases and their specific “context” with the specific customer segments. The feedback from prototyping service experiences possibly could lead to new ideas and helps the product or service to be a trusted partner in assisting the customer’s activity.

Prototyping service experiences across different channels gives a deeper understanding of customer’s expectations of their omnichannel experiences.

Service Recovery Experience – Online Transfer of Payment

Often, we encounter challenges with daily services that we access. For e.g., paying the monthly bill for Internet connectivity to the Internet Service Provider (ISP). Customers might not have a relationship with these services provided by the specific service provider.

The service provider knows that customer pays the monthly bills for the service provided. So, the service provider might not take steps to learn more about the customer’s experiences when they face problems in making their monthly payments as they know that it is the customer’s responsibility to pay the bills through different digital and non-digital channels.

I did face a problem when trying to pay my monthly bills and received no status updates as to whether the payment was made.

When customers do not know the status of their payment, they tend to be anxious and agitated. They might even take steps to pay again. Providing reassurance to customers to the specific channel irrespective of the outcome of the payment goes really a long way in letting the customer that the service provider values them highly. Also, letting the customers pay from where they were stopped indicates to the customers that the service provider knows their context thus improving the customer’s satisfaction and experience with the service provider.

In this service recovery issue, I see that customer could be dissatisfied with the specific digital touchpoint and initially look at other touchpoints to make the payment. If the customer’s context does not allow the customer to access other touchpoints, in the long run, there is a possibility of turning to other competitors.

 

Improving Customer’s Current Payment Experience

Due to the recent demonetization of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 in India, customers are short of cash as ATMs are empty. This has forced many customers who regularly pay by cash to opt for payments through digital wallets. Keeping this new trend in mind, many small stores and hotels in India have started accepting digital payments.

A month ago, when I was in Bangalore, I visited a hotel to have my lunch. While standing to pay my bill at the payment counter, I observed a specific customer who was not able to pay his bill as the swiping machine couldn’t connect to Internet to complete the transaction.

I have attempted to capture the current payment experience of the customer in the following storyboard.

Looking at the storyboard, it is easy for executive stakeholders to identify which customer experience issues are strategic and tactical. It is easier to get buy-in from the executive stakeholders for the prioritized issues paving for a speedy resolution of the customer’s challenges with their current experience.

 

Offline UI Experiences

A week ago, I was traveling from Hyderabad to Coimbatore by flight. During the flight, I thought it would be a good idea to check the conversational UI offline experiences of few mobile apps that I access regularly. I opened the specific apps and looked at the UI message displayed. Even though these apps were not designed for offline use, I was able to see few similarities in the UI messages.

Key finding – All but one app informed that Internet connectivity was unavailable. However, none of the apps were able to provide a clear message as to why Internet connectivity was unavailable, which is the context of lack of telecom availability when traveling by flight.

The UI messages were evaluated on the following parameters:

• Primary message to customer
• Identification of customer’s context
• Conversational tone
• Next activity to be performed

The apps accessed offline on my Android mobile device were:

• Facebook
• Facebook Messenger
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Uber
• Ola

Sharing the findings of  each app below.

Facebook

• Primary message to customer: Clearly states that Internet connectivity is unavailable.
• Identification of customer’s context: Fails to inform as to what could be the reasons for unavailability of Internet Connectivity.
• Conversational tone: Friendly.
• Next activity to be performed: Requests customer to retry.

Facebook Messenger

• Primary message to customer: Clearly informs that app is in offline mode.
• Identification of customer’s context: Informs the highlight of the offline mode even though the specific device is offline. The reasons for the cause of the offline mode is missing.
• Conversational tone: Formal and helpful.
• Next activity to be performed: Informs the next activity to be performed in offline mode.

LinkedIn

• Primary message to customer: Clearly states that Internet connectivity is unavailable.
• Identification of customer’s context: Fails to inform as to what could be the reasons for unavailability of Internet Connectivity.
• Conversational tone: Pleasing and evokes a sense of human conversation.
• Next activity to be performed: Requests customer to retry.

Instagram

• Primary message to customer: Message is unclear to customer as to what could be the issue.
• Identification of customer’s context: Very unclear.
• Conversational tone: Abrupt.
• Next activity to be performed: Requests customer to dismiss message without letting the customer know what to do next.

Uber

• Primary message to customer: Displays two key messages: 1. Enabling Location Services (primary) 2. Missing Internet Connectivity (secondary).
• Identification of customer’s context: Fails to inform as to what could be the reasons for unavailability of Internet Connectivity.
• Conversational tone: Formal tone.
• Next activity to be performed: Requests customer to enable location services.

Ola

• Primary message to customer: Displays a key message of Missing Internet Connectivity.
• Identification of customer’s context: Fails to inform as to what could be the reasons for unavailability of Internet Connectivity.
• Conversational tone: Formal tone.
• Next activity to be performed: Requests customer to enable location services.

Assessing the current customer experience of edge cases of existing products or services could possibly lead to new opportunities for companies to serve their customers in a better way through new products and services!

Note: Screens retrieved on December 14, 2016.

Changing Habits While Setting Financial Goals

Setting short-term financial goals is not easy. With multiple financial priorities competing for attention, sometimes it becomes difficult to achieve a goal. What if credit cards assisted customers to achieve short-term financial goals?

The above statement might be funny because credit cards issued by financial institutions thrive on the interest paid by the customer’s inability to pay the full amount within the stipulated period. What if credit cards help the customer to set goals at the start of a year and display the status of the goals achieved at the end of the year thus increasing customer’s emotional engagement with the financial institution?

In short, it is a tiny change in customer’s behavior and financial habits.

I created the three screens displayed below that could possibly trigger a conversation in customer’s mind as to why a customer’s goal was achieved or not.

• First screen – Setting goals at the start of 2016.
• Second screen – Displaying summary of goals with a positive acknowledgment that one goal was achieved.
• Third screen – Displaying summary of goals with a negative tone that only one goal was achieved.

First screen – Setting Financial Goals (Setting goals at the start of 2016)
Emotional engagement – Customer slowly builds trust with the financial institution as the customer feels that financial institution provides information about funds in an easy-to-read manner while customer’s goals are planned and set. By encouraging the customer to set the goals in the context of current and outstanding funds in the card along with insights on spending patterns, the customer is able to have an clear understanding. This understanding would help the customer to make a well-informed decision while setting the goals.

Second screen – Summary of Goals Achieved
Emotional engagement – Financial institution positively thanks the customer for achieving one out of two goals and encourages the customer to think deeply by offering two options in a conversational tone: What is the next activity? or an introspection through insights on spending patterns? It is an human tendency to understand the possible reasons for not being able to achieve one goal when another goal is achieved. Customer feels appreciated and empowered to know the reason behind as to why a specific goal was not achieved and start trusting the credibility of the customized financial insights.

Third screen – Summary of Goals Not Achieved
Emotional engagement – Financial institution politely responds through visual imagery that customer was able to achieve only goal. Only one question is asked: What happened? This question is open-ended and encourages the customer to think deeply as to why only one goal was achieved. Customer will definitely look at the insights of current spending patterns for a deeper understanding. Though, initially the customer might feel uncomfortable with this visual imagery, later on the customer will begin to trust the credibility of the customized financial insights.

With the customers accepting the credibility of the customized financial insights, there would be a possible shift from the transactional relationship between the customer and financial institution to a deeper engagement.

Q & A with Irith Williams, User Experience Researcher

Irith says: Good behaviour change should be about aligning people’s intrinsic desires with habits and behaviours that support well-being and health. Most people’s experience of behaviour change is different. That’s one of the things I’ve learned by researching how health coaching works.

Irith Williams works with a diverse team at HealthMap, based in the Infectious Diseases Unit, Monash University, Australia, focusing on HIV patients, and organizes the UX Book Club at Melbourne. Irith also talks about behaviour change and offers advice for user experience designers interested in healthcare.

Arun: Your current work of working with an inter-disciplinary team at HealthMap for creating a chronic disease self-management tool for people with HIV is exciting. Can you elaborate on the project?
Irith: HealthMap is an Australian National Medical Health and Research Council funded project. HealthMap is about to go into a cluster randomised control trial at HIV treatment clinics in a number of Australian states. I think there will be about 300 participants. The goal of HealthMap is to support self-management for the chronic conditions of ageing: heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. As with the general population these are the most common morbidities for older people with HIV, but having HIV makes managing them more complex and problematic.

The scope for HealthMap is very ambitious. It ranges from encouraging patients to discuss personal concerns with their HIV treatment provider, to supporting smoking cessation, to encouraging a cholesterol-testing regime to addressing issues around social isolation. It potentially encompasses mobile platforms, a clinic-based web app, a patient portal and phone-based health coaches.

Arun: One of your interest areas is in behaviour change. As a user experience researcher in healthcare, where do you see the importance of behaviour change?
Irith: Well, policy makers have identified behaviour change as the way to attempt the control of burgeoning health system expenditure. The bottom line is that taxpayers would have to spend less on the healthcare system if everybody stopped drinking sugary drinks (for example). Good behaviour change should be about aligning people’s intrinsic desires with habits and behaviours that support well-being and health. Most people’s experience of behaviour change is different. That’s one of the things I’ve learned by researching how health coaching works. Health coaches aim to equip people to recognise their own personal drivers for change and their own barriers and develop individual strategies to overcome those barriers.

Arun: You like designing beyond screens. What are the challenges involved?
Irith: I guess what I might mean by that is that I like a design approach that encompasses the big picture. It needs to be strategic. There could be plenty of solutions for which digital is only a part. There are a lot of constraints imposed by designing for a clinical trial, so where a true design approach would have room to try different iterations and test design efficacy in different directions designing to produce a program that has to be evaluated with a particular rigour and by a certain date can be more narrow. There are all the usual challenges of stakeholder relationships and competition for resources; it’s just that in the healthcare sector they have their particular context and patterns.

Arun: With wearable and pervasive computing technologies slowly becoming a reality, do you see people embracing these changes in their day-to-day lives?
Irith: I certainly see ubiquitous computing happening. I wouldn’t say the same about ‘wearables’. The research we did for HealthMap showed that almost 70% of our participants had smart phones. They didn’t all access the Internet via their phones, but many did. It’s also a generational thing. Most young people in Australia will own a smart phone or tablet at some stage. They will just see it as ‘normal’. Although data is very expensive in Australia compared to the UK and Europe. At the moment there is an economic barrier to web-based information. I think that’s very worrying as more and more information is only available via an Internet connection.

Arun: You have created a LinkedIn Group “Designing for Health in Australia” and also organize the UX Book Club, Melbourne. How has this helped you professionally?
Irith: As far as UX Book Club goes the most significant help has been to build a network. I moved from Sydney to Melbourne and had one connection in the UX field. I’m also a compulsive networker, so it was just my natural habitat in a sense. So if you want to build connections, roll up your sleeves and start helping somewhere.

If you participate in and facilitate community-based events it gives you a profile. I actually didn’t realise this until I’d been facilitating the Book Club for about a year and I attended an event and people who I’d never met knew who I was. That can be helpful if your goal is to build a profile. The other thing that happens is because you have a profile people make assumptions about your abilities and knowledge. I’m very aware of not wanting to give people false impressions of my skill set and levels of experience. I think anyone who is a quality designer will value honesty and openness about areas that need development, I don’t want to ‘sell’ myself, I want to build relationships based on trust and respect.

The goal for “Designing for Health in Australia” isn’t about me at all. Although it will give me a profile I’d prefer that my activity would diminish and it became a self-sustaining forum for dialogue. We only began in September, so it’s early days yet! Health design in Australia straddles academia, medical institutions, private agencies and LOTS of small startups. There’s a huge need for cross-pollination and sharing of expertise. There’s also a need for a conversation around an Australian context, as there are major differences between Australian and overseas healthcare systems.

Arun: What are the exciting start-ups in healthcare that you follow?
Irith: I attend the Melbourne-based Healthtech Startup meetup and there are some fantastic case studies shared.

I’m aware of startups like ‘Sessions‘ which are also in the behaviour change field. There are also startups like ‘ManageBGL‘ that have huge potential.

There are a lot of doctors who code and write their own apps to support their own work, which is very exciting. ‘StethoCloud‘ is a good example of that.

Arun: What words of advice would you offer for user experience designers who are interested in healthcare?
Irith: I think this would apply to any field actually, but I would say ‘build relationships’. Attend health-related meetups and hack events. Even better would be to build relationships with academic design researchers and medical researchers. In Australia the whole institutional structure of healthcare and health funding is interwoven with academic research. There are some really cool projects out there just crying out for design input. My observation is that people understand they need funds for ‘software development’ (which means engineering) but no idea that there is a whole parallel design activity that needs to happen. Make connections and educate people about how design can solve problems. In healthcare design is very much about shaping scope and requirements. That’s very important.

I would also say be aware that there is a huge need for stakeholder education in User Experienced Design as an evidence-based process. All the familiar issues from the corporate world about ‘Why do you need to do research? We already did surveys.’ still exist, but they have their own flavour that comes from the medical world and academia. Be patient and be prepared to explain why you work the way you do.

In Australia I would definitely advise designers to rethink their revenue model if they want to work in health. Hospitals and universities don’t have the same budgets as the corporate world. Grant-funded projects don’t have lots of flexibility in how funds are spent. I don’t know of any health projects that could afford top shelf UX freelance rates. There are a minority of ‘for profit’ health companies operating in Australia. I think the government sector may have more freedom, but I don’t have any experience of that.

Q & A with Jen Hocko, Principal User Experience Designer

Jen says: I was amazed at the efficiency of the seemingly “low tech” experience, and how I was never frustrated upon leaving!

Jen Hocko works as a Principal User Experience Designer in Boston and also maintains her blog on health and wellness. Jen travels a lot and shares her stories on her personal website.

Arun: Can you please let us know about your work and interests?
Jen: Sure. During the day, I work as Principal User Experience Designer for Continuum Managed Services in Boston, MA. In much of my spare time, I manage “A Journey Into Health“, where I offer health and wellness services to the public. Right now these services include gentle yoga instruction (privately or in group classes at local studios/gyms), meditation groups, and private Reiki sessions. Next year I plan to start offering nutritional coaching.

I also love to travel, dance, cook, read, and write.

Arun: What motivated you to start your A Journey Into Health blog focusing on meditation, yoga, reiki, and nutrition?
Jen: I was always interested in good health, mostly through exercise. Studying and then working in high tech started to take it’s toll on me stress-wise, and back in 1998 I started looking into meditation to help with stress, and thought of yoga as a primarily physical endeavor (i.e. to improve flexibility). It took me a long time to recognize that yoga and meditation were more than that–that they could actually help improve the quality of my life. I also started to see how the field I worked in and the natures of our fast-paced world took a toll on the health and wellness of my colleagues and friends, and wanted to share what I was learning with them.

That said, the blog actually started many years ago. Since I’ve always enjoyed writing and it comes pretty easy to me, I started blogging just for the fun of it. Then I noticed that a majority of my posts were about health and wellness–mostly my own experiences about what I was trying. Realizing that, in 2012 I focused and branded the blog and met a goal to blog once a week for the whole year! I continue to blog now but not quite as frequently. 🙂

Arun: Your favourite hobby is West Coast Swing (WCS) Dancing. How has this hobby helped you?
Jen: Much like yoga, dancing is a moving meditation. It took me out of hurried, “normal” life and gave me something else to focus on. So it was a great stress relief. For people who can’t sit, meditation is still possible. Dancing also challenged my introverted nature, made me feel more connected with my body, and encouraged me to take risks (on and off the dance floor).

Arun: How did you get started in User Experience?
Jen: While struggling to get my undergrad degree in Computer Science, I discovered I was good at, and enjoyed creating sites in HTML. The president of a local start up company saw a site I’d made, and hired me part time. I started designing/developing web sites for banks–this was in the old days when it was Products, Services, Contact Us. That sort of thing.

After graduation I took a full time job as a web developer, but I always gravitated toward the “front end”, design aspects of it. I also had several years making use of my second major, which was in Professional / Technical Writing. So I wrote documentation, often explaining very complicated interfaces. I always thought that if they were easier, the instructions could be simpler (or unnecessary). I went back to school for a Masters in Human Factors in Information Design at Bentley University, and have been doing user experience work ever since.

Arun: Do you have interesting experiences to share from your interactions with healthcare providers in the U.S.?
Jen: As you can tell from my various jobs and interests, I’m extremely busy. Whenever I needed to fill a prescription, I used to send it to the CVS pharmacy that was on the corner of a main street near my house. Yet every time I went in, I got extremely frustrated. The line was always long, the pharmacists never looked happy, and it felt very much like I was always inconveniencing them (when actually it was the other way around). They used technology in a way that seemed efficient — for example you could use an automated phone system to refill your orders (of course you still had to pick them up!) and they would text you when your order was ready (which often took 45 minutes or more).

What I discovered is, I could go to a local, family owned pharmacy just down the street from the CVS pharmacy. I didn’t use any technology but rather just walked in, and my prescription was refilled within minutes, with smiles and kindness on the behalf of the employees. It was clear that they also knew their customers–referring to them by name and even on occasion letting them run a tab (if they couldn’t afford to pay that particular month). I was amazed at the efficiency of the seemingly “low tech” experience, and how I was never frustrated upon leaving. I decided that all my prescriptions would go to this more local store in the future. I think that what this demonstrates is that technology can be helpful, but there still needs to be a human touch to the experience to keep people coming back.

Arun: You travel a lot especially to Europe and South America. How has your healthcare experiences with the international countries been?
Jen: Fortunately I haven’t had any need to experience healthcare in other countries. The closest I came was in Athens, Greece, when I got violently ill from eating a grilled octopus (I think). I was up all night with terrible gastrointestinal problems, but my friend and I didn’t have a clue what it would be like to go to an ER there. We considered it, but instead spent the 24 hours until my illness passed watching movies with subtitles.

Arun: What are your thoughts about the future role of User Experience in healthcare?
Jen: I think UX in healthcare is absolutely critical–there is so much at stake. Although I don’t specifically work in that industry, I feel a UX professional can have a lot of impact.

People working in technology companies supply hardware or software to doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals. When those products work well, healthcare professionals can focus their time and attention on their patients. When products are difficult or challenging to use, their focus is diverted to making the technology work, and can affect the quality of patient care. And the impact can be more widespread than we think: for example, it’s pretty obvious that a confusing user interface might lead to an incorrect assumption and a wrong diagnosis or prescription. But additionally, the doctor or nurse’s frustrated mood or tone may come through during a communication.

Because of my work with A Journey Into Health, I do believe a patient’s healing process can be significantly impacted by the energy between them and their healthcare providers. Technology that works is critical to good relationships and communication, which our healthcare industry struggles with today.

Arun: Which are the countries that you plan to visit later this year?
Jen: I am going to Spain (for pleasure), and to Mumbai, India (for business). Most of our development team is in India, and it will be a great opportunity to meet them face to face! As with all my travels, I will be sure to post stories on my personal web site (www.jenhocko.com).

Mobile Health Without Borders (Online Course) – Health Innovation Challenge

Our final assignment was the Health Innovation Challenge assignment. The duration of the assignment was close to four weeks. The Health Innovation Challenge starts with a topic selection, market analysis, brainstorming of solutions, and concludes in a Business Model. I will share few interesting observations and takeaways from this assignment.

We were a team of six and the team members had varied academic qualifications. Our team comprised of  Dr. Cheryl Franklin,  a gynecologist,  César del Pino, a mobile technologist, Meamya Christie, a social entrepreneur, Shruthi Prashanth with a background in biomedical engineering, and Sucheta Arora who is a graduate student in Molecular Biology.

Sharing a screenshot of the assignment milestones (retrieved on July 21, 2013).

We started with brainstorming mobile strategies for conducting remote pre-natal visits.  Also, we looked at the possibility of a mobile device/app that monitors and provides support for the adherence of narcotic pain sedatives.  Finally, we decided to go ahead with the topic focusing on support of adherence of narcotic pain medicines.

Our initial research focused on the following topics:

• Reasons behind teens to take narcotics such as stress from school, to gain acceptance from others, to increase self-esteem, etc.
• Reasons why people get addicted to narcotics
• Behavioral patterns of teens using narcotics
• Principles of effective treatment
• Outpatient behavioral treatment comprising of cognitive–behavioral therapy, multidimensional family therapy, motivational interviewing etc.

The team reviewed existing solutions to solve the challenge we had picked.  We looked at Pharmacotherapy (a medication treatment) for patients who are addicted to  narcotics. Another solution was e-pill Med-O-Wheel SECURE Tamper Resistant Portable Pill Dispenser available on Amazon. This dispenser device can be programmed to dispense medication in a specific time window.

Few ideas suggested for the mobile app included:

1. Text based reminders for every dose, and refills
2. A scoring system based on timely intake of the medicine to give positive reinforcement (similar to motivational incentives)
3. An alarm system alerting the doctor/pharmacy/family member if there are attempts to break-into the bottle

Final concept statement: mHealth device designed to work in collaboration with medication and behavioral treatments for teens with drug dependence for the purpose of assisting in the process of creating a customized treatment plan that can be monitored by a caregiver using a mobile app.

Creating the Business Model for the concept was tough as we had to think beyond the concept stage to position our product amongst the practical realities of the intended market.

My key takeaways from this assignment are:

1. Interacting with diverse members helped me to learn about maternal care and teen drug abuse
2. Identifying and brainstorming different topics for possible solutions
3. Learning to present the final concept on a Business Model Canvas

I should add a special note of appreciation to my team mates: Meamya Christie, Shruthi Prashanth, and Sucheta Arora for their wonderful research contributions to our team assignment.  I really enjoyed working virtually with the team and hope to meet them in some part of the globe!

Our final presentation is available on SlideShare.

Additional reading resources recommended by Meamya, Shruthi, and Sucheta:

1. Identifying technology-based opportunities in the addiction treatment and recovery field – http://www.innovationsforrecovery.com/Prototype/SystemPrototype.aspx
   
2. Technology in Substance Use Prevention and Treatment – http://www.drugfree.org/join-together/addiction/technology-shows-promise-in-substance-use-prevention-and-treatment
   
3. AVERT  (Addictive Voice Emergency Reality Training) – https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/avert-addictive-voice-emergency/id533220167?mt=8
   
4. Abuse of Prescription (Rx) Drugs Affects Young Adults Most – http://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/infographics/abuse-prescription-rx-drugs-affects-young-adults-most
   
5. Prescription Drug Abuse: Young People at Risk – http://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/infographics/prescription-drug-abuse-young-people-risk
   
6. Adolescent Cigarette, Alcohol Use Declines as Marijuana Use Rises –
   http://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/nida-notes/2013/02/adolescent-cigarette-alcohol-use-declines-marijuana-use-rises
7. MobiUS Smartphone Ultrasound Device – http://www.mobisante.com/product-overview/
   
8. Cantenna [blended word of can & antenna] technique used to increase the range of Wi-Fi networks – http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Cantenna

Mobile Health Without Borders (Online Course) – Review mHealth Solutions

As part of Mobile Health Without Borders online course, one of our assignments was to review and brainstorm mHealth solutions and share our findings within a week. I wanted to share briefly about how our team worked on this assignment.

I worked with Hormuz Vazifdar from Australia, Shruthi Prashanth from Dallas, and Mohit Goel from Delhi. It was fun working with them and considering that we were in different team zones, it was hard to schedule Skype calls. We had a lot of chat discussions on the team page.

The following screenshot contains the assignment instructions (retrieved on July 7, 2013).

We started off by thinking about probable health challenges:

• Create behavior communication strategies for patients who have dental problems.
• Train and equip maternal care givers in rural areas through mHealth technologies.
• Develop a product that can empower pregnant women to receive relevant information. 
• Develop a device that collects data from an infant and analyse it using a toolkit, which can be connected to a smartphone. 
• Develop a kit to test the babies for any ailments or symptoms.

I created a mindmap that lists the prominent factors of influence among people in rural areas that have very limited access to technologies. The team then researched the following existing responses to the above challenges such as:

• Community Outreach Programs
• Education Initiatives
• Localized Solutions based on Context
• Data Collection and Technology Intervention with Different Stakeholders

We brainstormed to create What-If problem statements. Few of them are:

• The dental patient wishes to create a medical dental history for his family. However, the patient is not aware of his previous medical history including his parents. How can he get started? Also, the patient needs to access their family medical history and explain it to his family members.

• The dental patient does not know to read and write. Usually, the patient forgets what the dentist tells him. How can he make a note of the information?

• The dental patient goes to a medical dispensary and finds that the prescribed medicine is not available. Whom and where should he contact for alternative medicines?

Then, we brainstormed and shortlisted five What-If statements and created scenarios. I’m sharing few below.

• How, when, and where can we arrange patients to have a regular dental check-up and maintain their records in the rural areas?

• How to ensure that patients remember their dental check-up schedule and avoid missing them?

• How to enable people to contact dentists if they have any queries regarding their dental issues, access to medicines, change of appointments etc.?

Few helpful references shared by Shruthi and Mohit for our assignment.

Maternal care

1. Midwives Connect – It is an m-health application that utilizes Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology to empower rural maternal caregivers that are usually overworked, poorly trained and equipped.
   Read more at http://www.medweb.com/docs/midwivesconnect.pdf.
2. IVR4BABY – A simple lack of knowledge and health education of women and their families in rural areas and developing countries is a key roadblock to improved maternal and infant care. With IVR4BABY, vital information for maternal and infant survival in isolated communities around the world can be delivered via mobile health technology.
   Read more at http://www.medweb.com/docs/ivr4baby.pdf.
3. Biosense – Non-invasive, instant, portable, anemia scanner. Visit www.biosense.in for more details.
4. Mobile midwife platform – Visit http://sites.path.org/mnhtech/assessment/emergency-obstetric-care/mobile-midwife-platform/technology-solution/.
5. Publications in the field of maternal health – Visit http://www.midwife.org/Key-MCH-Publications.
6. e-training modules aim to enhance skills of healthcare workers – Visit http://www.unfpa.org/public/home/news/pid/14145.
7. Intel and UNFPA to Boost Health Workers’ Skills – Visit http://www.unfpa.org/public/home/news/pid/9931.

Brainstorming

Conceptual Design in 2 minutes – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo2SG4JhohQ.

It was great working with the team as everyone had different skill sets to complement each other. I look forward to working with them again!