My UX Case Study on ePharmacy App in DesignBoat

Introduction

Disclaimer:- This is a pet project case study we did for our learning of UI/UX. The project was created during the UI/UX Course at DesignBoat UI/UX School, Bangalore in 2021.

What if we can have a caretaker or nurse who can help me up with the insulin which I have to give my grandma?

Introducing Medro — Which can even take care of the home nursing facility with some great deals in medicines and diagnostics.

This UX study concept I got when I was in DesignBoat UI/UX course, and in this project, I mainly focused on how to give more value and facility to the consumers and solving the existing issues through design. Here I will explain the research I did and what are the pain points I got from the consumer and do the user research through various research methods and build a visual hierarchy and the user testing so on and so forth.

Most of the Indian citizens in urban cities prefer online pharmacy over offline. As per the article from Economic times 61% of people prefer buying drugs through ePharmacy apps. According to Frost & Sullivan, the e-Pharmacy market in India is estimated to be around the US $512 million (INR 3,500 Crores) in 2018 and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 63% to reach US $3,657 million (~INR 25,000 Crores) by 2022. The global e-Pharmacy market is currently led by North America and Europe. However, the major opportunity lies in addressing the vast unmet needs of the developing Asia Pacific market.

e-Pharmacy is at its nascent stage in India, but like other categories, has the potential to be a very large industry segment in the near future. The online purchase of medicines is gaining momentum in India. The advent of online pharmacy retailers in the Indian market will further increase the penetration of the organized pharmacy segment. It is expected that the e-Pharmacy model could account for 15%-20% of the total Pharma sales in India over the next 10 years, largely by enhancing adherence and access to medicines for a majority of the under-served population.
Currently, many e-Pharmacy players such as Medlife, Netmeds,1MG, Pharmeasy, Myra, CareOnGo, and Pharmasafe operate in this segment. Medlife is currently a leading player with about a 30% market share of the total e-pharmacy market in India.

There are a lot of factors which is helping ePharmacy industry booming in India. Let’s talk about that a little bit.

Internet penetration in India is set to increase at a CAGR of 15–16% from 2015 to 2020, reaching ~510 million users by 2020.

Digital India Initiative is expected to boost the country’s economic growth along with improving the lives of its citizens.

e-Healthcare Initiatives by the Government will bring more and more patient services online and make people familiar with using online health services.

Changing disease patterns in India and Growing Number of Lifestyle Diseases

There has been a major epidemiological transition in India in the last 25 years, and the focus has shifted from communicable to non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The morbid population base with diabetes and hypertension in India is expected to rise to 263 Million by 2020. However, many do not seek medical help due to a lack of awareness and the high cost of treatments. An estimated 77.2 million people in India were pre-diabetics as of 2014.

Increased Spending on Medicines

Medicine spending in India is expected to increase at a 9–12% CAGR between 2018 and 2022 to the US $ 26–30 billion, driven by increasing consumer spending, rapid urbanization.

Now let’s talk about the existing business model of ePharmacy in India.

Inventory-based Model of e-Pharmacy

The inventory-based model of eCommerce means an activity where the inventory of goods and services is owned by the eCommerce company and the products are sold to the customers directly.

Marketplace-based Model of e-Pharmacy

The marketplace-based model of eCommerce means that the technology companies act as a facilitator between a buyer and a seller. In this model, the e-Pharmacy plays the role of an aggregator. It provides a technology platform that connects the buyers and sellers of medicines.

Generic eCommerce Marketplace

Generic eCommerce marketplace is a technology-driven electronic platform where a wide variety of products like electronics, fashion, furniture, home furnishings, and cosmetics are sold. This model prohibits the advertisement and sale of prescribed drugs or any drugs, which are in violation of the Drugs & Cosmetics Act. Examples of this marketplace are Flipkart and Amazon.

Now there is no proper regulatory body for the online pharmacy that’s why the Union Health Ministry released draft rules on the sale of drugs by e-pharmacies on 28th August 2018. On 7th December Drugs Controller General of India Eswara Reddy confirmed that The union government is expected to come out with final regulations for the companies selling medicines online by the end of this month.

Here are the regulations draft key points.

• e-pharmacies are currently governed by state drug regulators.
• The DCGI will be regulated under the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules 1945 as well as the Information Technology Act 2000 under which eCommerce companies are regulated.
• The registered pharmacist must verify the details of the patient, registered medical practitioner, and arrange for the dispensing of drugs as per the instructions of the registered medical practitioner.
• Companies operating e-pharmacies are required to take one license in any state. Any state license will enable the pharmacies to sell drugs all over the country.

So, What problem I found in ePharmacy?

As I was searching more about e-Pharmacy I found a lot of issues and I stuck with a few of them. First I saw a very common issue with this ePharmacy is delivery, there was no pharmacy app that delivers medicines except one which delivers in only Bangalore. And second I have seen in this pandemic that you can’t go out and if you have an old-aged family member in your home then you might need a certified caretaker or house nurse so that we can save people's life. And we got 12 weeks of time to solve and come up with a concept and eventually design it.

Now, What are the solutions I came up with, and what opportunities are there to work on them.

I was constantly thinking about that how we can deliver medicines in time of emergency and if that medicines should be taken with any assistance or not. In a simple word how I can bring a hospital into your house. Everything nowadays delivered at your home then why can’t medical care. The app will help you to buy medicines at an affordable price and even generic medicines. Medro helps you to consult with a doctor 24/7 and even book a nurse so that if u need any help in a time emergency, we will there to help you out. And Medro even helps you to get your medicines on the same day.

There is a convenience of buying medicines, it improved a lot of accessibility. There is a huge cost advantage and most important is the authenticity of the medicines, So there is a lot of transparency between seller and buyer. So there is a lot of benefits here.

So with that in my mind, I tried to get a little deep into it and try to find what consumers have to say about it and eventually do user research.

If you can see the above examples of the cost of medicines and see the difference it's huge. And that can give you a huge advantage to grab that opportunity and you don't have to have an official offline pharmacy where maintaining could be a useless expenditure as it can be.

And see even the diagnostic industry market which can help you to understand that if the test can be affordable and come to your doorstep then the consumer will choose it more likely as compared to going there and wait for hours.

Below you can see the different brand founders and FICCI's formal general comments and how much they are confident about the industry even it's not properly regulated.

User Research

In user research we did both qualitative and quantitative research, these methods literally help us to understand the consumer needs and the problem we are trying to solve is meeting their expectations or not and exactly what kind of problem they are facing in the current scenario.

Qualitative Research

During this research, we interviewed around 15+ users and tried to understand what is their expectations and what are the concerns they have related to online pharmacy, and what are the features they feel should be there.

Quantitative Research

I have conducted a survey which gives me a fair enough idea and the contradictory pointers between both data and that you can see it below.

From this quantitative, we can understand that people do prefer to purchase medicines online and they do like the idea of home nursing and prefer some of the lab tests in the comfort of your home. And they even like the idea of a subscription model if they get a combo of a lot of features in it.

Pain Points I discovered during the research

• They don't the medicines they need and there are always stock issues.
• They get their medicines delivered very late.
• Force marketing is irritating for them.
• Offline medicines are expensive.

Let’s start with the design thinking process

This process is going to help us to find the actual problem and come up with optimal and viable solutions.

Let’s do some competitive analysis

After we did the research we tried to analyze our competitors and basically understand their market strategy and their products and find a spot to work on. And below there is a diagram that helps you to understand how many players are there in the industry and what are the value-added services.

And then I made a comparative graph with some of the players I have chosen. And by the time I am talking about this medlife had been merged with ePharmacy and in 2018 medlife itself acquire 30% in the market.

Persona

A detailed persona was extracted from the research, survey, and competitive analysis. This persona gives us an understanding of the user's personality, motivation, frustrations, and goals.

Empathy Mapping

We later drew an empathy map to articulate what we know about the user personas in order to create an understanding of our user’s needs.

Then I started with the ideation process and some more analysis

I was thinking about how to make the process more clear to the user and help them find what they need and how to solve the delivery process and I have found that the only area they are lacking is the delivery and then the stock issues.

Currently, there is a lot of misunderstanding about e-pharmacies impacting traditional retail pharmacies. But in reality, the e-Pharmacy model enables the existing traditional pharmacies to cater to a broader set of customers and also ensures that the inventory is consolidated by reducing the requirement for working capital, removing wastage from the system, and increasing margins, thus making the model sustainable.

Then I was thinking about the possible solution and the opportunities we have —

We can provide them the medicines through express delivery.

And the app should avail the service of nurses so that they can take their injections and the medicines which they can’t take by themselves.

We can even have subscription model which provides diagnostics test and even get the monthly medicines with a nursing facility.

And even they can customize the subscription and save money on it.

And we can connect them with the offline pharmacy as an aggregator when they don’t have the medicines in inventory and this will help both medium and coexist in the same industry.

If everything can be delivered in one day or in 2 hours why not it can happen everywhere in the country and eventually cater to the whole country.

Task flow and User Flow

Then I did some card sorting which actually helps me to make an architecture that is information architecture, and that eventually led to making a proper layout for the user to find each and everything and hopefully don't confuse them.

Here comes the real deal, DESIGN.

Design

Now here I have to accumulate all the information and the research with the analysis and construct an app and it's taking its shape while I was following the process. Then I made low fidelity and high fidelity wireframes which eventually helps me to make a proper design.

Final Design

Usability Testing is a very important thing and finds out that your product is viable and usable or not for the consumer.

I test the prototype with the user to get the actual reaction of them and to know that our product matching user expectations or not. Usability testing helps us to get a better idea of that.

We test our prototype with 5 users and it had been done both in-person and remotely.

Findings and Recommendations

• The diagnostic screen is a little more simple and not confusing.
• Adding filters or changing the names of some of the topics can be more helpful for users.
• Some section card color is not visible properly.
• Pharmacist appointment timing should not be there rather it should be instantaneous.

Conclusion

With this UX study, I want to say that this had been a great learning and even I found some of the flaws in me and I want to clarify that.

Learnings and Takeaways

• I wish I could have done the research and the user interviews with more sincerity and asking questions that will not lead me to a biased response from users.
• I should have done the analysis extensively to get to the optimal solution because it’s not about more features it’s about making it less complicated and not overwhelmed the consumer.

You can find my design at www.behance.net/biswadeepdhar

So do give your valuable feedback and if you like it then give me a clap👏 😊.

Credits — Article of frost and Sullivan on ePharmacy in India.