Revitalising COG's clinic experience, I created a design flow in order to guide users to confidently secure their sessions while ensuring the experience is engaging.
My role : UX, UI
Tools : Figma, Notion, Adobe Ps, Ai
Duration: 3 weeks
Setting the scene
Tight deadlines, streamlining processes, and effective communication
The COG Clinic design was my first project at COG. I was briefed that the current design was completely failing at converting users into booking therapy sessions, even the free ones. The founder wanted to redesign and launch immediately.
Due to the time pressure, I needed to adapt and streamline my design process. After analysing the existing design, I realised that its numerous flaws meant that even a few quick changes could significantly improve the overall impact.
Working closely with the lead engineer and the founder, we navigated tight deadlines to ensure the design's feasibility and alignment with the business's needs and brand vision. I presented ideas and wireframes, securing feedback and approval from both.
Additionally, my role extended beyond design to crafting scalable guidelines for new therapist profiles, synchronising with the founder's recruitment efforts.
Introduction
Addressing the ADHD support by crafting a trustworthy User Experience for COG
In the UK, over 2.6 million individuals are affected by ADHD, with many more undiagnosed due to barriers like long waiting times, up to 4 years, and high private healthcare costs.
COG aims to transform ADHD support by making it accessible and affordable through the COG Clinic platform, allowing immediate session bookings with ADHD coaches. However, despite positive word-of-mouth for our initial app release, direct bookings were lacking.
My role involved redesigning the COG Clinic's user flow to build trust and encourage engagement, helping more individuals access the support they need without delay.
Problem Statement
While there's a significant demand for affordable neurodiverse support, few are booking COG's coaching sessions.
Our challenge is to build trust in the value of our coaches and their sessions and pave a clear path for users to book them.
Existing design
Understanding User Hesitations
Upon launching the beta version of COG, preliminary feedback from testers was positive and promising. However, once the MVP was live, we didn't register any independent session sign-ups.
Given the disconnect, the question arose: What was the underlying issue? We even offered a free intro session, which we thought should be inviting enough, yet this feature wasn’t getting the traction it deserved.
A closer examination of the app revealed multiple pain points:
#01 Aesthetics and Branding
The clinic's design aesthetic didn't align with the overall app, creating a disjointed brand experience.
#02 Information Overload
Users were presented with excessive and sometimes irrelevant text, making key information difficult to locate or overshadowed.
#03 Confusing User Flow
The Cog clinic's navigation was confusing. The 'self-help' feature, which isn't related to the clinic, was prominently placed in the main navigation. Moreover the process of toggling between coaches and grasping how the clinic operates wasn't intuitive.
#04 Invisibility of key features
Crucial offerings, like the free intro session, weren’t highlighted adequately.
#05 Inaccessibility
Colour contrast between white text and orange background was too low to be accessible.
Goals and Objectives
Enhancing COG Clinic design through improved UX, UI, accessibility, and customer value
#01
More professional interface, aiming to increase user trust and confidence.
#02
Boost the number of direct coaching session bookings.
#03
Ensure the app and clinic flow is following the WCAG standards for colour accessibility.
#04
Expand COG clinic by inviting more experts with varied strengths and areas of expertise.
Metodology
Competitive analysis of online therapist profiles
A crucial part of converting a user is then creating a specialist profile that builds trust and gives the user the confidence to book. Given our target demographic's potential for short attention spans, striking a balance between thoroughness and brevity was vital.
The research sparked many ideas, and I curated a list of possible sections for therapist profiles, as well as some concepts for a 'How it Works' segment that explains what ADHD coaching at COG works.
After several rounds of exploratory sketches, one idea stood out. I engaged with the developers to assess its feasibility, ensuring that my sketches avoided potential implementation pitfalls.
Challenges
Designing within startup constraints
Upon joining COG, I was full of new ideas and design suggestions. However, the reality of working for a small startup was that we had big financial and resource constraints.
I quickly realised that effective communication is a must. I made sure to talk about the suggested features and the workload they would need with the engineers and founder to agree on priorities. Whether through quick sketches, Figma mockups, or just casual discussions, I ensured my ideas were feasible given our resources and timelines. The new design was meant to be rolled out in a two week timeframe so staying on track was crucial.
Certain features like displaying the nearest available date directly on the therapist card or supplying the therapists with the analytical data from user symptom check-ins needed to wait for further app iterations.
Challenges
Creating content guidelines to maintain consistency in coach profiles
While I focused on refining the design, the founder onboarded new coaches. Despite having a set template with all sections, therapist profiles varied in content length and style. To address the problem I determined ideal word counts for profile sections and established style guidelines. This ensured therapists had a clear blueprint for consistent profiles, streamlining our scaling process.
Solution
Designing a seamless and engaging User Experience
#01 Enhanced navigation
In the redesign Self-help was separated from Coaching and moved to a location in the main nav-bar. As a result the tabs in the Clinic could be used to allow users seamlessly transition between "How it works" and the coach listings.
before
after
#02 Focused content
In the redesign Self-help was separated from Coaching and moved to a location in the main nav-bar. As a result the tabs in the Clinic could be used to allow users seamlessly transition between "How it works" and the coach listings.
#03 Optimised coach profiles
The aim of the profiles was to strike a balance—providing enough information to earn user's trust without being overwhelming. I integrated client testimonials into the coach profiles, offering users insight into each coach's impact. In alignment with COG's mission to destigmatise ADHD, I designed profiles that could evoke positive feelings in users. Lastly, I ensured the removal of the inaccessible colour combinations.
#04 User centric CTA's
Knowing that some user can have issues with making final decisions, I changed the main CTA from "Book Now" to "Check Availability." Additionally, the offer for a free intro session was also highlighted at the end of the profile with a CTA to book.
Results
Post-launch conversion rates going up
We released the updated app to 300 members of the COG community to gauge the impact of the changes, and the response was instantaneous. In the first couple of days, four clients initiated a free consultation through the app.
Three months after the launch, the impact was still visible. Since launching at the beginning of August, 76 free and 35 paid sessions have been booked.
Key learnings
Designing through empathy, consistency, and collaboration
Understanding our target audience (those with ADHD) played a crucial role. Catering to their specific needs, such as shorter attention spans, directly influenced design decisions like the use of visuals and concise content.
The redesign emphasised a unified look and feel, ensuring that all screen's are aligned with COG's brand and ethos. Consistency not only enhances aesthetics but also builds trust and predictability for users.
Working with limited resources and a startup environment highlighted the need to prioritise design changes that are both impactful and feasible. Collaborating closely with developers and understanding technical constraints early in the process allowed for immediate design implementation.
What's Next
Mapping the future with refinements based on user insights
Moving forward, we intend to closely monitor clinic sign-ups and users' commitment to the coaches, while actively gathering user feedback. Our aim is to understand the clinic users' experiences - from the moment they land on the page and make the decision to sign up, during their therapy sessions, and after. To this end, we're crafting a feedback mechanism via Typeform.
We plan to further develop the Cog clinic. To better understand the clinic customers' and coaches' needs, we have scheduled an in-depth research process where we interview all parties involved, to then focus on designing the most crucial features accordingly.
