Streamlining behavioral therapy tools into a unified experience
Client
Industry
Healthcare
Year
2024
Duration
8 Weeks
(Who and why?)
Context
(01)
The client
A leading U.S. healthcare network delivering primary and behavioral care to geriatric patients. Therapists were using up to five disconnected tools to manage patient care, creating friction, inefficiencies, and unnecessary cognitive load.
The existing legacy platform lacked support for behavioral therapy use cases, so the client saw this initiative as an opportunity to modernize their tools and better align them with the specific needs of behavioral health providers.
More broadly, the goal was to reduce operational complexity and scale behavioral health services more effectively. By consolidating fragmented tools, the client aimed to lower legacy system maintenance, reduce training costs, and accelerate onboarding for new therapists.
(02)
The challenge
Fragmented experiences across multiple unconnected tools
Workflow inconsistencies and repetitive tasks
No existing UX research to guide product direction
Limited visibility into real therapist needs and context
Our mission: Co-create an intuitive, therapist-centered tool concept that could replace existing systems, improve daily workflows, and inform future product development.
(03)
My role
I led the end-to-end UX effort on the concept phase, including:
Conducting on-site interviews and contextual inquiry with behavioral therapists
Facilitating a collaborative workshop with therapists and clinical managers
Mapping workflows and designing early-stage, high-fidelity concepts
Leading usability testing and iteration cycles
Collaborating daily with the Lead Designer, Junior Designer, Product Manager, and Engineers
Aligning with stakeholders to ensure research-backed design decisions
(What I did)
Process & solution
(04)
Discovery & research
To ground our work in the real therapist experience, I led and participated in:
In-person user interviews and contextual inquiry at clinical sites to observe workflows and identify unmet needs
A collaborative effort by the design team to map the "as-is" user journey, including:
Phases of the patient visit
Key steps and handoffs
People involved (therapists, assistants, schedulers)
Emotional states across the workflow
Tools used and major pain points
This journey map helped us synthesize our findings and communicate the existing complexity to stakeholders.
Next, I co-facilitated a design workshop with clinical managers and key stakeholders, where we:
Reviewed the “as-is” journey to align on challenges
Co-created the future-state user journey, defining an ideal therapist workflow
Prioritized core features for the new tool and discussed MVP considerations
These sessions helped shape our design hypotheses and ensured that our concepts were grounded in real context, not assumptions.
As-is journey map of the behavioral therapist workflow, created after in-person interviews and contextual inquiry. It visualizes the phases of care, people involved, pain points, and systems used across the daily experience.
Facilitating a design workshop with behavioral therapists and clinical stakeholders to co-create the future-state user journey. The session followed field research and the creation of the as-is journey map.
Future-state journey map co-created during the design workshop with therapists and stakeholders. This to-be journey captured ideal workflows, screens, and interactions for the new behavioral therapist tool.
(05)
Concept design & testing
Following the design workshop, our team (including therapists), began ideating what the new therapist workflow could look like. We mapped out the key steps and refined the structure through multiple collaborative sessions.
Once we had alignment on the flow, I worked with the design team to identify the most critical screens and user interactions to prototype.
Using our research insights, I designed a high-fidelity concept prototype in Figma, focusing on the core tasks therapists needed to perform:
Preparing for patient sessions and understanding “how my day looks”
Documenting therapy notes during or after a session
Managing new referrals and follow-up patients, with an emphasis on prioritizing the most critical cases
Tracking and completing follow-up actions, such as scheduling, documentation, and care coordination
The prototype used existing components from the client’s design system to ensure consistency and scalability
To validate the concept, I led moderated remote usability testing with a diverse group of therapists.
High-fidelity concept for the behavioral health therapist dashboard, designed in Figma using the existing design system. The screen consolidates daily tasks, patient status, referrals, and visit details into a single, streamlined view.
High-fidelity concept of the patient referral panel, designed to help therapists prioritize outreach and track referral deadlines. The layout supports quick filtering, contextual details, and timely follow-up actions.
Concept design for the documentation screen used during or after patient sessions. The layout organizes structured note sections, such as history, physical exam, assessment, and plan, while allowing therapists to add screeners and reminders.
(06)
Outcomes & impact
Our concept testing surfaced consistent, actionable insights that helped validate and strengthen the direction of the new therapist tool.
The feedback confirmed that we were solving real problems with a user-centered approach. Key takeaways from testing:
Strong enthusiasm for a consolidated and structured tool
Therapists wanted clear visual indicators of patient status
High value placed on pre-filled fields and reusable patient data
A centralized view of patient information, status, history, previous notes, was considered essential
Familiar interaction patterns, paired with thoughtful improvements, made the tool feel intuitive and useful
These insights helped us refine the concept and gave the team and stakeholders clarity and confidence moving forward.
The validated concept also enabled a clearer, more tangible product vision for therapists, which helped the Product Manager accelerate planning and roadmap development. It reduced uncertainty for business stakeholders and supported more focused, confident decision-making around future investment and implementation.
Project impact:
Defined a clear, scalable vision for a therapist-centered platform
Enabled research-backed design decisions that aligned stakeholders early
Uncovered critical workflow needs before committing to development
Set up future teams with validated patterns, flows, and design system-ready components
(07)
Final thoughts & reflections
This project was a powerful example of concept-driven design rooted in field research. I’m especially proud of:
Designing with and alongside therapists through discovery and ideation
Leading on-site interviews and contextual inquiry to ground our work in reality
Supporting a Junior Designer through their first full-cycle UX project
Delivering tested, practical concepts that informed a long-term product vision