Role
Tools
Timeline
UI/UX Designer
UX Researcher
Figma
Miro
Adobe Suite
Jira
MAXQDA
June 2023 - Present
Product Manager
Developer team
Data Analytics team
3 UX Designers
Team
Introduction
MI Umbrella is the umbrella term for several collaborative efforts between the University of Michigan’s Schools of Information and Public Health and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services designed to improve data-driven responses to disease outbreaks. I am part of the UX team at MI Lighthouse, an initiative under MI Umbrella.
MI Lighthouse is a private dashboard that supports local health departments by providing authorized state officials of 82 Michigan counties with vaccine data visualizations to track Covid-19 vaccine uptake, assist in outbreak investigation and resource allocation decisions during the COVID19 pandemic.
Objective
Due to its popularity and demand, MI Lighthouse is being expanded. My primary objective was to design the next iteration (v2). Lighthouse v2 focuses on tracking vaccine uptake rates for multiple seasonal diseases such as influenza or diseases with long-term impacts such as MMR, as well as opening out the dashboard to other key stakeholders such as school administrators.
A new set of users and features calls for additional UX considerations and challenges. As a UX designer, my responsibilities included:
Planning the UX roadmap
Executing the research phase
Presenting research insights to internal stakeholders
Prototyping features for
MI Lighthouse v2
Prior to my integration into the team, research on the different types of Lighthouse users had been done through a round of interviews. Three distinct types of user personas were identified:
Understanding Lighthouse v1
In order to develop features for Lighthouse, I had to first understand what it already offers. MI Lighthouse v1 was a rapid response to the COVID19 pandemic, so it had limited functionality.
Personas
Michigan Care Improvement Registry is the vaccine database for the state. Lighthouse made this data accessible to local health departments.
Data Sourced from MCIR
Lighthouse provides detailed geographic vaccine coverage insights for COVID19 only.
COVID19 Data Only
Lighthouse provides vaccine data down to county and census tracts in Michigan.
Granular Data
A screenshot of the Map page of MI Lighthouse v1
Since the jurisdiction of some health departments does not align with county boundaries, users had a hard time getting geospatial information for vaccine coverage in areas under their jurisdiction.
Users do not have access to different demographic data in order to analyze the effect of vaccination efforts
Tracking vaccine coverage over time requires effort in the form of data collection and analysis. Users want an easier way to do this.