What was your inspiration for the project?
Inspiration for the project honestly came from frustrations working with clinical trials training programs. Graphic design strategies applied to the information design (my expertise) needs of trainings were expected to translate into the go-to slideware authoring and delivery technology (you know the technology I'm talking about...) - they did not - translate, that is. I worked at it 3 years, got paid well and traveled liberally throughout the US, Western Europe and South America - it was not a bad gig as that went. With business getting backlogged in my regular line of work (a broad range of visual design scenarios) I took a break and attended to it for the next couple of years but was inticed back to clinical trials training. With a new perspective on the inherent value of these trainings (short, forgettable information often outdated the day of training) I made it a mission to actually extend the value of these trainings by suggesting alternatives to slide based investigator meetings. In a kick-off meeting for an infectious disease study for pediatrics I sketched out the framework for a cloud hosted application that could deliver content in group trainings and that had content updating features that made the usual study documentation revisionary disruptions nothing more than a minor blip in training development and deployment. My end game, however, was to strategically try and move requisite training information closer to where the information primarily associated with patient care resides. Thus a mobile technology that had a flexible delivery platform that included group and individual information access.
My goal in addressing what might be best described as managing clinical trials information loose ends is to focus on poor clinical trials outcomes. With patient dropout and non-compliance rates reaching into the 25% range according to John Hess's seminal white paper entitled "Clinical Operations: Accelerating Trials, Allocating Resources & Measuring Performance," (2006), and an industry move to focus on competence as a likely culprit in these shortcomings it made sense to seriously consider the training/learning/education part of the risk management pie chart.
How it works:
It's best to start with why it works and move to how.
The UI prioritizes an information organization scheme that is standard to all clinical trials protocols - the schedule of events (goes by other names as well. Because it's an information design question as much as it is a UI functionality one, it was important to start with a familiar visual reference that's already required as a patient treatment summary. I used this framework to "hang" both direct and supplimentary information on. My goal had always been to make the application a reference tool and create a new context for what constitutes the how of learning. Once I had the prototype operational I understood that the app made it possible to virtually pinpoint any information that might be buried in the protocol within two clicks. Furthermore, it actually placed a learner inside actual study documents. It is simple and familiar. that's why it works.
Challenges I ran into:
The biggest challenge has been and is adoption. Finding users to test the application in real-world or even near real-world is met with concerns that inserting this application in present traning programs would disrupt their present training operations. I need to find users to test this. Also money to address what I forsee as the most important development inflection points is sorely needed.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
The UI, while pretty straight forward in terms of structure, has always had the aim of use simplicity from the administrative, authoring point of view. It is performing some very difficult document tracking functions that, short of AI, forced me to solve a revision flow. This piece of the technology has turned into something really special - extraordinarily simple and unlike anything I've personally ever seen. I credit my project partner - the real brains behind this solution - for how it turned out.
What I learned
I've had to do more work in the UX side than I have before. There's room for improvement but by working through this by applying a user perspective and by referencing models used by other UX geniuses it causes me to understand the necessity of development collaboration in projects like these to get at the best solutions
What's next for Psynthesys
We have a road map for building out the application to include such things as patient scenarios (context based learning) role-based learning modules, information visualization arrays and a particularly novel model for social interaction and sharing in professional settings, between essential clinical trials personnel.
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