NHS Blood & Transplant

Client
National Health Service Blood Transplant
(NHS BT).

NHSBT an independent organization that supplies blood products to hospitals across Britain. Hospitals are seeking innovative ways to reduce the cost of transfusion, improve performance, and reduce blood wastage.

role
User Research, Prototyping, Visual Design, Journey mapping, Storyboarding

team
Oleksii Ponomarenko, Gabriel Schwartzman,
Denisa Haas, & Nikki Korobeynik

Brief
As a business in charge of blood supply, we were asked to apply Business Transformation thinking and strategy to NHS in the scope of the end-to-end donor experience.

How might we enhance the blood donor’s experience by making it an efficient, consistent, and satisfactory journey?

Field research at Manchester Norfolk House Blood Donor Centre

The Process

Desk Research &
Mapping current user flow

Stepping into the user's shoes, what was the current process in wanting to become a blood donor online?

Mapping the current user flow allowed for a deeper understanding in both ends of the spectrum: how the NHS processed donors, and what the process was for people who wished to be donors.

A key finding in mapping out the user flow: the NHS takes 24 hours before sending a confirmation email before allowing the user to be able to schedule an appointment online to donate blood.

However, signing up digitally was only one channel to donate blood, and pushed the team to continue to look at the multiple touchpoints in the blood donor's journey.

NHS Current User Flow for Blood Donation

Field Research

Start by 'getting out of the building' to gain a better understanding of the full end-to-end blood donor experience. The focus of this was to gain more context of the full blood donor experience through ethnography, record observations, and interview patients and employees working at the center.

Estimate of Time Provided by Manchester Norfolk House Blood Donor Centre

Online Survey
& User Interviews

From interviews, and survey insights, the aim was to understand why people chose to donate blood and what factors prevented people from donating.

Synthesizing survey results and interviews, we found that the people took pride in, and enjoyed being blood donors.

Understanding the blood donor's journey, we identified key moments to improve:
1) Check-in process
2) Donation during the on-session experience
3) Closure experience.

Identifying 3 Key Moments of the End-to-End Blood Donor Experience

Jobs To Be Done & Journey Mapping

Mapping out the customer journey, understanding key touch points, 'jobs to be done' by the person who is donating blood created more comprehensive idea of the gains & pains of the user experience in donating blood.

Using the Value Proposition Canvas as a Tool

Ideation

Diverged and converged on ideas, using a variety of ideation tools. Considered project scope and timeline of project to decide which were the strongest ideas to present and move forward.

On-site Blood Donor Environment of Manchester Norfolk House
Blood Donor Centre

Prototyping

Taking one of the insights, we created a digital prototype reimagining a faster check-in process, addressing the first key touch point of the blood donation experience.

Prototyping a Digital Solution, Integrating QR codes to Expedite the Check-In Process

Turning Insights Into
Recommendations

Insight:
People wish to donate but the perception of time is misjudged.

Opportunity:
Minimize check-in time by modernizing the process. Making it more efficient, valuing the donor's time.

Direct Quotes from User Interviews to Communicate Design Decisions

The Outcome

The research enabled us to create insights and identify opportunities in each of the 3 key moments of the user journey in blood donation.

These opportunities included: minimizing check-in time by modernizing the process to make it more efficient, to value donor’s time, minimize an element of fear and discomfort during the blood donation process, and to improve the post-session experience for donors to increase retention rate.

The insights and opportunities were presented to the National Health Services Digital Director and Head Nurse at the end of the project.

Digital Concept of new check-in process applied to cities. Aimed to drive engagement and visibility around blood donation.

Tools & Methods

Online survey
Immersive Experience
In-Depth Interviews
Observational research
Desktop Research
Journey Mapping
Value Proposition Canvas

Culture Design

Team culture canvas
Check In & Check Out
Team Feedback

Project Reflections

Key Learnings

As a designer, it's important to be mindful that we may not have a full view of all the challenges and constraints that the business might face. Which gives more importance to engaging with the client to understand their challenges.

Teammates Denisa, Oleksii, & Nikki