Guiding a child through a complex treatment journey with gentle, meaningful gamification
I designed an interactive, story-based tool that helps young leukemia patients and their families navigate complex treatment plans.
Role
Product Designer,
Researcher
Year
2024
Duration
6 weeks
Category
Client
Challenge
When understanding cancer treatment protocols is already overwhelming and difficult for families, this is only exacerbated for the children patients.
Beaba asked us to transform the current paper experience through gentle gamification, so that it feels cleaner, gentler, and more approachable.
Solution
I spearheaded the design of a storybook style experience that transforms treatment steps into snackable episodes.
Mixed together with other features like the medication tracker and progression map, the app helps children understand their past, present, and future of where they are in their treatment journey.
The original treatment protocol was complicated.
One mother had an idea: turn it into a game.
One mother shared that had turned the protocol into a homemade board game so that her child could better understand it. While there still existed an overload of information, this revealed opportunities for playful design. Namely, the first insight —
Children process medical information differently, and often, much more emotionally.
How might we adapt that board game into something emotionally and cognitively digestible for children?
The earlier version showed promise, but needed refined alignment to how children absorb difficult information, which may be in ways of clearer logic, friendlier tone, and a simpler structure.
So, we did some research to best inform decisions.
Due to ethical concerns of having young leukemia patients as participants, we thought outside the box.
We conducted interviews with doctors,
conducted separate interviews with adults who had undergone high-intensity treatments,
reviewed pediatric cancer learning tools,
analyzed clinical literature, and
made sure we were aligned with the standardized leukemia treatment steps.
I conducted follow-up research to replicate our findings for reliability, as well as to add meaningful context.
Children feel most at ease and remember best when information is conveyed through a narrative with bright visuals.
And so we began acting on the insights.
The design process.
The onboarding quiz starts the child off. The quiz ensures a thorough customization of the story to the child, as each treatment protocol is unique and constantly changing.
The episodes map helps children understand where they are in their treatment journey and gauge their progress. Each episode unlocks only if the child's real schedule has progressed as well.
The interactive visual novel is synced to the child's treatment protocol by the day, helping patients learn about today's treatment step and prepare them.
We took the sketches and transformed the digitized treatment plan altogether.
The Beaba App
