BLOOD CARE
Background
Blood is a body fluid that transports oxygen, hormones and nutrients to all the parts of the body to enhance their functioning. Blood also removes toxins and waste materials from the body. It is unequivocally true that human beings cannot exist without blood, however, situations arise that cause individuals to require blood transfusion as blood may be lost during surgery or the body may be unable to produce blood properly. These cases include accident victims and individuals with certain medical conditions.
BLOOD TRANSFUSION
Blood transfusion is a process that involves transferring blood or blood products into one’s circulation intravenously. This process is required frequently by individuals with certain medical conditions which include, anaemia, cancer, haemophilia, kidney disease, liver disease, sickle cell disease, thrombocytopenia, and many others. This gives rise to the phenomenon of blood donation. Blood donation involves the process of collecting, testing, preparing and use of blood given by volunteer donors.
Through donating blood, individuals participate in achieving the SDG goal “Health and Wellbeing”.
However, blood donation is oftentimes a tedious process for both the donors and recipients, as a result, the main objective of this study is to find solutions to the challenges in current systems that impede the blood donation process.
Introduction
Transfusion of blood and blood products save millions of lives every year for supporting cancer patients, surgery, new mums and babies so on, almost every two seconds of every day someone needs blood. However, the national blood supply has become more critical deficiency issues during the Covid-19 pandemic. In Malaysia, its blood bank stock has increased by 40% because of the reduced blood donor since Covid-19 breaks.[The Malaysian Reserve]
Thus we are going to create a blood donation app which is Blood Care app to encourage people to donate and provide a platform where people need blood.
Proposal Problem
Holistic Problem Space
Blood recipients often experience difficulty in finding donors.
Blood donors may be unavailable or not within reach.
Blood donors may be unfit to donate.
Blood recipients do not know the blood donors who reside close to their location. This results in time wastage and could lead to frustration.
Blood recipients lack awareness. Lack of awareness on the path of the users is detrimental to the smooth running of the system. This occurs in several situations which include;
The users are not aware whether the donors are able or fit to donate.
The donor accepts the request from the recipient but he or she does not know whether he is eligible to donate. This can be as a result of low haemoglobin level, HIV infection, pregnancy e.tc.
Blood donors lack motivation
According to the Fogg Behavior Model, in order for a target behaviour to be executed, users must be highly motivated, able to carry out the target behaviour and be prompted to execute the action. However, oftentimes, the system does not provide blood donors with sufficient information to be motivated to donate blood. Furthermore, the blood donors do not see the result of their actions and are not rewarded in any form, hence their motivation to donate blood continuously is dimmed.
Blood donors do not trust the recipients and vice versa.
The donors might not donate his/her blood on time.
The donors are liable to forget about the commitment they made to recipients if they are not reminded by the system. This a prominent problem on current systems, as there is no feature that provides a reminder on accepted blood donation requests.
The blood donors may be unresponsive because the current systems do not provide an option for transportation to the hospital or blood donation venue. This is a grave challenge for the users who are willing to be blood donors but can not afford the cost of transportation to the blood donation venue.
USER EXPERIENCE PROBLEMS WITH CURRENT SYSTEMS
The Problem with Current Systems
For the course of this section, in-depth analysis will be done on current blood donation applications with respect to the undesirable aspects of the user experience goals.
SavelifeConnect
It is a current blood donation app that allows users who are blood recipients to send out information on urgent blood needed to blood donors.
1. Problem with Registration/log in: A new user has to register before he/she can use the system, there are no options for visiting the app without registration on the current systems. This could lead to the users getting agitated as they are unaware of what the system is about yet they are being forced to register. Also, its usability is very inefficient to use since the user does not receive a verification code for registration upon making an error and requesting for a new code which is very annoying and could drastically reduce the user experience on the application system.
Figure1: No option is without registration Figure2: Cannot receive verification code
2. Fixed donation fund: For users who want to give financial support, there is no option for them donating how much they want. It is very hard to make users choose. they may be forced to give up the thought for usability is that does not have a good utility which makes them annoyed.
Figure3: Fixed donation funds
3. It is difficult to find or connect with blood donors: Blood recipients request for blood donors and wait for blood donors to accept the request. However, this process is time-consuming and can lead to a feeling of uncertainty and insecurity in the recipients as there is no information concerning users who are donors on the current systems. And its usability is ineffective to use for users.
Figure4: Recipient asks requirement
red
1. Problem with Register: new users cannot visit the app without registration and there are so many steps to complete the registration, which is tedious and not easy to finish.
Figure5: login/ sign up page
2. Different language: One prominent feature on the red app is the “Covid-19 Test” feature, however, this feature is displayed in a language that not all users are familiar with. This could lead to information not being relayed to the users and confusion on the path of the users.
Figure6: texts are English Figure7: After clicking Covid-19 Test show Arabic
3. There is no information about people needing blood on the app: This app can help users who need blood to find donors. However, it is made with very bad user experience, the app does not show these requirements to users in a quick way, and when users opt to change or update their location and blood type information in users’ profiles, it is very difficult for the users to make these changes. This is because some of the users opt to choose their location with the “Select By map” feature but this feature does not perform the required action and there is no notification sent to the users to verify if the change was made. Needless to say that it is not effective to use.
Figure8: People need blood is empty Figure9:Not working for select by map
Figure10: Next is not working
4. Difficult to request for recipient users: This is very important for users and for the app too, it should be easy to operate, however, it makes users very confused and unsatisfied because when recipient users want to confirm their hospital, it is not working for either user manually locate by map or use the hospital app recommendations based on users’ current location, and when users try to publish, the app keeps saying “Data incomplete” is related to Hospital Name and location, even if there is notification shows the hospital information is okay. It absolutely causes users very annoyed and do not know how to do it, it is useless and ineffective to use.
Figure11: Entry for asking requirements Figure12: It shows hospital is okay
Figure13: Keeps saying “Data incomplete
USABILITY GOAL PROBLEMS
The current systems are not easy to learn: The current blood donation systems are difficult to learn. For example, the myblooddonor app uses icons that the users are unfamiliar with and does not provide a description of these icons. This goes against the recognition over recall principle of the users.
Figure14: Icons with no description, some of which are unfamiliar. Interface void of blood request feature.
The current systems, although quite effective, are not completely effective. This is due to the lapses in user experience goals described above. The systems do not provide enough motivation to the users, especially the category of users who are donors to execute the required result of opting to donate blood. Also, the current systems do not provide enough information to donors to enable them to make proper decisions, especially concerning their eligibility to donate. This could lead to a large number of unfit donors.
The current systems are not accessible by a larger group of people. For example, blood recipients who cannot afford blood and health services will still have the problem of paying for health care and blood hence the current system is not effective for this category of people. Also, blood donors who need assistance, for example, transportation, will not be able to effectively use the current systems.
Proposal Solution
Solution Space
0. General Problem
Specific Solution
More info for Solution
Blood recipients often experience difficulty in finding donors.
The new application will comprise of a feature that permits the donors and recipients to set their location or the states which they reside in and search options to show nearest and farthest donors at any given time. This will enable recipients and health organizations to be aware of donors who can easily be accessed if the need arises.
The application will also have a feature that permits donors to update their status of availability at any given time.
Add a feature that can connect to donors ( Chat in-app with VoIP and Text )
Users lack awareness
Add a pop up when registering as a donor to give information to donors about who is able and who is unable to donate blood.
Add features for donors to go and make a free check-up to see if they are fit to donate or unfit to donate. For the donors who already know the information needed to add it manually and also to allow for specific categorization
Blood donors lack motivation
Add point system for donors and add donor ranking with awards.
Point system where donors will get points for each donation they make and the top donators on the system will get a reward of the certificate of participation.
These points can also be redeemed for rewards regardless of position on the leaderboard of donors.
Furthermore, the application will have two categories of blood donors, paid donors, and unpaid donors. This is to encourage people with rare blood groups to donate their blood.
Share stories of recipients who received blood from donors in order to motivate people to keep donating and encourage other recipients with health issues.
Blood donors do not trust the recipients and vice versa.
Set a specific time for the donor to donate his blood.
Set specific time though the app where the donor has to donate within that time and set it to be successful when carried out.
The current systems are not effective.
The new applications design interface will comprise an easy registration and verification process.
The map feature will be able to set the correct location of the user if the user wishes to do so.
The application will provide feedback on user actions that were successful or unsuccessful.
The current systems are difficult to learn
The new application will comprise of familiar icons with descriptions where necessary.
The application will also provide guidance to the users and help users navigate correctly.
The application will comprise an easy to use and attractive interface that users can recognize and be familiar with.
The current systems are not accessible by a larger group of people.
The new application will provide a feature that allows blood recipients who require frequent blood transfusion due to health challenges with the low financial stability to opt for financial assistance.
The application will provide a feature that will allow donors who require transport service to opt for assistance.
The application will provide a donate money feature that NGO’s and individuals who are willing to donate money can easily make monetary donations. These monetary donations can be used to assist recipients and donors.
TARGET USER
Recipient
One of the main target users of the app or system is the person who really needs blood and requires blood transfusion frequently. The application will enable recipients to get help through publicizing and raising awareness of the request for the blood of a certain type. Furthermore, recipients who have certain health conditions that cause them to require frequent blood transfusion but do not have the financial capability can opt for assistance on the application and when verified the money gotten from donations on the app can be used to assist these recipients.
Donors
BENEFITS
Users who want to donate their blood: This app is suitable for those who want to donate their blood to contribute to society. They will get a notification if there is someone who needs blood urgently. Also, the app provides information on blood donation events to the donors and this information can be shared with their friends and family such that many people will be aware of the blood donation event.
Furthermore, the app will provide incentives to motivate users who are donors to participate in the blood donation process. The donors who are willing to volunteer but do not have the financial capability, for example, in a situation where the donor cannot transport himself/herself to the blood donation venue, the user can opt for transportation service. Also, certificates of participation will be awarded to donors who participate in order to boost their motivation and cause them to keep donating.
Users who want to donate financially: This app can be used by users who may not want to donate their blood, but would like to give financial support. The user who has already donated their blood for that month has to wait at least 3 months to donate blood again. But, they can still contribute to society by donating their money to people in need.
The hospital administration and Non-governmental Organizations.
Through this app, they can promote their program about blood donation. The hospital can state what blood type they need and how many people who need blood urgently because the hospital may run out of blood from blood banks. Non-governmental organizations can also promote their agendas and give financial support to people with health issues on the application. The hospital and non-governmental organization also have access to the database of individuals who donate and require blood and assistance which will help in analysis and research.
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