Phreesia

User Research | Persona Workshops | Design Strategy

Phreesia provides patient intake management solutions to healthcare organizations, automating tasks like patient registration, scheduling, payments, and data analytics. Their products also include call-triaging, electronic forms, consents, and a doctor finder, all designed to enhance patient engagement and improve operational efficiency.

Shared below are a few highlights of the projects that I have worked on.

 

My role: Senior UX Researcher ( Leading UX Research, Participant recruitment and Research Ops)

Tools: UserZoom, Google Analytics, Miro, Figma

Team: Product and Design Team.

Timeline: Nov 2022 - Jan 2025

Project 1 - Discovery Research for Medifind.com

 

My role as a Senior UX Researcher

Spearheaded all UX research initiatives for Medifind.com, employing a variety of research methodologies, including ethnographic studies, user interviews, and detailed analysis of user data. These efforts directly influenced the product roadmap, resulting in significant improvements in user engagement and retention by ensuring the platform met the evolving needs of its users. Additionally, supervised UX changes and directed necessary updates to the website, ensuring seamless implementation of research-driven enhancements.

Problem

After Medifind was acquired by Phreesia, a lack of clarity around the product roadmap and gaps in user research led to missed opportunities in addressing user pain points. Without a structured UX strategy, the platform struggled to align with user needs, impacting engagement and retention. Implementing comprehensive research and ensuring its findings translated into actionable design changes became critical to improving the user experience.

Research

Contributed to various projects at Medifind, including conducting discovery research with approximately 50 moderated and unmoderated "think-aloud" user interviews involving around 200 users across key problem areas. This research identified critical user needs, pain points, and opportunities for improvement, directly informing the product roadmap and strategy. Supervised a UX designer in developing research-driven wireframes to ensure alignment with user insights. Leveraged both quantitative and qualitative data to prioritize feature development, streamline task flows, and enhance task completion rates, ultimately improving overall user efficiency and experience.

 

Research Methods and Tools

Research Methods:

  • Competitive Analysis

  • User Interviews

  • Customer Support Interviews

    Tools

  • UserZoom , Teams, Miro , Confluence

 

Deliverables

  • UX Recommendations Report

  • User Interview Synthesis Report

  • User Testing Key Findings Report

  • UserZoom Studies

  • Research Plans


Key Findings from Discovery Research

Our research revealed that users searching for primary care doctors and specialists have largely aligned needs, prioritizing similar decision-making factors.

User Priorities:

  • Location: Proximity to home or work.

  • Availability: Ease of appointment scheduling and office hours.

  • Doctor’s Approachability: Clear and comfortable communication.

  • Insurance Compatibility: Accepted insurance plans.

Areas for Improvement:

  • Filters: Users need more intuitive filtering options to refine searches efficiently.

  • Doctor Profiles: Users want more detailed profiles, including qualifications, experience, and patient reviews.

  • Condition Search: This section caused confusion for both groups.

Additional Insights:

  • Reviews & Ratings: Users highly value authentic patient feedback in their decision-making.

  • Insurance Information: Clear insurance acceptance details are critical for informed choices.

Further Detailed Research was conducted on each of these areas to validate the pain points and hypothesis and make UX an UI changes.

Click here to view the detailed research results

Click here to view the UX and UI changes

 

Research Results and Business Impact

Each recommendation derived from this research was further explored through additional research to validate findings and refine solutions. These insights were then translated into specific product feature improvements, addressing pain points and aligning the product with user needs. By implementing these changes, the research drove enhanced user engagement, increased satisfaction, and higher retention rates. Additionally, it optimized resource allocation, accelerated product development cycles, and ultimately contributed to positioning the product for long-term success and greater market competitiveness.

Project 2 -User Persona Workshops

 

User Persona Workshops

I conducted a series of user persona workshops for different Phreesia products including Patient Registration , Dashboard and MediFind that brought together key stakeholders, including Product Managers (PMs), Client Services (CS) representatives, and development teams. These collaborative sessions focused on gathering insights from each team’s perspective to create well-rounded, data-driven user personas. By aligning on user needs, behaviors, and goals, we were able to ensure that the entire team had a shared understanding of the target users. These workshops played a crucial role in shaping the design and development process, fostering cross-functional collaboration, and ensuring that the product would meet the actual needs of users.

Research

I facilitated multiple Persona Workshop consisting of four 60-minute sessions with cross-functional teams, including Developers, Client Services (CS), Product Managers (PM), and Designers. The goal of the workshop was to collaboratively create user personas that would serve as a foundation for user-centered design decisions across the project.

The workshop was structured to gather insights from all stakeholders, ensuring that the personas reflected real user needs, behaviors, and goals. We used a combination of user interview data, surveys, and stakeholder insights to map out user goals, challenges, and needs. Each session involved active collaboration, where participants worked together to refine the personas, validate assumptions, and prioritize user-centric solutions.

Key achievements from these workshops include:

  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Engaged multiple teams in discussions, aligning everyone on user insights and ensuring shared understanding of target users.

  • Persona Creation: Developed comprehensive, data-driven personas that included demographics, behaviors, pain points, and user motivations.

  • Actionable Insights: The personas informed design and development decisions, guiding user flows and ensuring the product addressed real user needs.

Persona Workshops were conducted for following Phreesia Products

  • Eligibility and Benefits :These were created to represent the key users involved in verifying and managing patient benefits.These included Insurance Specialist, Front Desk Staff and Patient personas.

  • MediFind User Personas: These were created to represent different MediFind users - Patients, Provides and Office Managers

  • Phreesia Dashboard Personas: These were general Dashboard Personas that Included Front desk staff, Billing Managers, Office Manager, Patients and Providers

This cross-functional collaboration allowed us to integrate user feedback into design and product decisions, leading to a more intuitive and user-friendly Phreesia dashboard.

 

Research Method:

  • Stakeholder Interviews

  • Affinity Daigraming

  • Empathy Mapping

  • User Interviews

 

Deliverables

  • Proto Personas

  • Qualitative personas

Research Insights and Business Impact

The workshop format promoted team cohesion and ensured the final personas were aligned with both business goals and user expectations, ultimately improving the overall product experience

Click Here to View Detailed Personas

Project 3 -Research for Phreesia Dashboard

 
image copyrights Phreesia.

Phreesia Dashbaord - Qualitative and Quantitative Research

The Phreesia dashboard is a tool that healthcare organizations use to manage patient intake, scheduling, payments, and clinical support.As part of our ongoing efforts to improve the Phreesia dashboard, I worked closely with Product Managers (PMs) to gather user feedback and insights. This involved conducting moderated user interviews with key clients, including Phreesia providers, office managers, and front desk staff. The interviews helped us better understand the challenges and pain points these users face when interacting with the dashboard.

Note: Image copyrights Phreesia.

Problem

Phreesia currently offers a classic desktop dashboard and a mobile dashboard for mobile devices, each with distinct user experiences. Before designing new features or making changes, it is essential to gather user feedback through usability testing to understand how each dashboard is being used. This will help identify pain points and areas for improvement, allowing us to prioritize feature enhancements that will have the most impact on user satisfaction and efficiency.

Research

Collaborated with designers and PMs on multiple projects aimed at refining core features. Key areas of focus included:

  • Payments: Improving the payment interface for a smoother, more efficient process.

  • Eligibility and Benefits: Enhancing the experience for users verifying patient eligibility and benefits, ensuring clarity and ease of use.

  • Patient Intake: Refining the patient intake process to streamline workflows and reduce administrative burden.

This cross-functional collaboration allowed us to integrate user feedback into design and product decisions, leading to a more intuitive and user-friendly Phreesia dashboard.

 

Research Method:

  • Moderated User Interviews.

  • Usability testing

 

Deliverables

  • Research Plan

  • Interview Scripts

  • Research Synthesis Report

  • Usability Testing Documentation

Research Insights and Business Impact

These insights will guide the design and development of a more efficient, user-friendly Phreesia dashboard, improving satisfaction and usability across both desktop and mobile platforms.

Click to view details of Research Insights

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