Dr. Tot
Dr. Tot is an application created for children ages 3 to 6 to use during or before their doctor’s appointment during their pediatric visit. Parents can also use the companion app to help their child virtually experience the different stages of the healthcare visit by guiding and monitoring their screen activity. This project was a culmination of my thesis dissertation at the Iowa State University for my Graphic Design Master of Arts program.
Why?
This project was inspired by my two-year-old son, Anthony. I clearly remember the anxiety I experienced as a first time mother, when taking him to the doctors office. I thought about how I didn’t want my son to feel this way once he began to understand that he was in a new and unfamiliar environment.
Research [1] shows that when children are put into an environment where they feel a lack of control, they are at risk of psychological trauma. That can result in anxiety, anger or aggression.
This application is designed to assist parents and help children to virtually experience, and thus better understand, the various medical; processes that they may be subjected to during their upcoming visit.
The research goal for this project is to first understand pediatric health care and the concerns associated to a health care visit, especially for children between the ages 3 to 6.
It will consider case studies to identify the role of pediatricians in a health care setting and take into consideration the challenges faced by children and parents during a health care visit.
This information will then be finally used for recommending an intuitive solution involving the design of an AR-based mobile application for both children and parents to use prior, during and after a health care visit.
[1] Source goes here
Initial Sketches
The Child (Primary) Application
Paper prototyping began with concept sketching in order to conceptualize and visualize the idea of having both a parent and child side to the application.
The idea behind having a dedicated child application was for the child to have the access to to play games and learn about health care visits.
While in the application the child would press play on their tablet and the screen would zoom into the hospital lobby with patients inside. While the nurse takes the child back, the child is send a video explaining why these medical procedures must be done. After the end of the video, there would be a reward system put in place to encourage child to finish video and game.
The Parent (Companion) Application
On the parent’s application, they are first taken to the application’s home page. The home page houses the primary features of the application.
Includes: Parent Control, Doctor Review, Past Appointments, New Appointments, Pharmacy, and Settings
These features offer the parent multiple functionalities that helps them in controlling and curating:
the child (primary) application,
the pediatric appointments,
the AR games of the application, and
the videos and games to be sent to their child.
Low Fidelity
Low fidelity wireframes were developed in Adobe XD (Experience Design), a vector-based experience design platform.
Asset Creation
For the creation of this applications assets, Adobe Illustrator was utilized. The assets were created as vector illustrations, which were then used in Adobe XD for application prototyping.
Final Application Design
Parent/Companion Application
In order to understand the application for the child we need to understand the companion application that aimed to be used by parents. The features available on the companion application enable parents to set up their child/children’s primary tablet application and curate their experience.
Child/Primary Application
Unlike the parent/companion application that is meant to be used on a smartphone, the primary Dr. Tot application is designed to be used by children on a bigger tablet screen. Once the parent has used the companion application to set up the virtual environment for the child/children using the available instruction videos, activities, tasks and instructions, children can start using the primary application on their end on their tablet devices.
Additional Formats for Dr. Tot Application
Given that about 15% of children in the United States do not have access to technology devices like smartphones and tablet computers, it would impact their ability to access an application like Dr. Tot to familiarize themselves with a pediatric center prior to their visit. For such demographics, this study proposes the following: a coloring book, online streaming and DVD discs.