johns hopkins decision map
Explore and visualize the decision-making process of patients with serious conditions when deciding to travel for out-of-state care.
the needsjohns hopkins medicine provides world-class medical care to patients all over the world. however, not all patients knew that they provided support for patients who wanted to travel from out of state.
the opportunityhow could their website answer questions that patients have when considering traveling for care?
the projectjohns hopkins decision map and website concepts
Note: I am unable to show the decision map but will highlight the process and learnings throughout the project.
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With a team at Red Privet, explore and visualize the decision-making process of patients with serious conditions when deciding to travel for out-of-state care.
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Lead Designer along with the Lead Researcher, Heather Wadlinger, and Design Director, Mayr Budny, collaborating on interviews, and leading decision map design and concept wireframes.
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April - September 2014
project details
project challenges
An example of what most people think of when they hear “decision map.”
Our biggest leap to make on the Decision Mapping project was how to make a decision map about something that isn't logical. I'm used to doing decision maps in software systems, not a human experience with emotion and illogical influencers. Heather and I had to work through drawing after drawing to understand how we could capture this process. Both of us had created archetypes, like a lightweight persona based on behavior, on past projects. After unsuccessfully drawing the decision map, we took a step back and created archetypes based on how people make a decision. We found there are 3 types of patients: 1. Researchers, people who compare hospitals, doctors, ratings, etc. and make a decision from analysis, 2. Committers, someone who gets a referral and follows it without looking at other doctors, and 3. Validators, who get a referral, and weight it more, but also compare a few more options.
We also found that no matter the archetype, if a phone call doesn't go well when making an appointment, they will reconsider traveling for care.
When we were in our session creating these archetypes, I drew 3 lines to the side of the board. A straight line for the committer--they just take the referral and run, a crazy squiggle for the researcher--they go all over the place and compares a ton of information, and the validator as a funnel--they have a sense of direction with a referral, but they still look at a few other options.
From there, we came up with a ton of iterations to include other important steps, integrating where emotion is important in the map, and ultimately ending up at a phone call.
What I found was that the objective of our map didn't need to show the same "If yes, then..." information because that didn't exist. That communicates the type of flow a system has--logical. I needed to show diversity in behavior as well as social, emotional, and informational influencers.
We printed the map as a poster for Johns Hopkins Medicine, and today are still referencing it as a key framework to understanding how patients make decisions about care.
Part of the final decision map poster
