The Digital Brain Function Screen is a medical-grade cognitive assessment: patients complete game-like tasks on tablets to screen for early cognitive decline, and results inform clinical decisions. Version 3.0 was a full experience rebuild — and it earned a Special Mention at the Singapore Good Design Award 2024.
The problem
Sessions ran past 25 minutes, causing patient fatigue and task abandonment. Text-heavy instructions demanded high literacy; users hesitated, misread steps, or tapped through demos. Unclear transitions between previews and live tasks confused patients, pulled in staff for constant clarification, and degraded the reliability of clinical data.
The rebuild
Clarity and speed drove every decision: simplified workflows, redundancies removed, plain-language instructions with visual aids, standardized interactions across screens, and transition cues — countdowns and previews — so patients always knew whether they were practicing or being tested.
Process
- Discover — clinician and patient interviews surfaced length, literacy, and comprehension issues across diverse patient populations
- Define — affinity mapping clustered feedback into three themes: Duration, Accessibility, Comprehension; goal set at ≥25% session-time reduction
- Develop — three prototype iteration cycles (v1 → v3), each tested with older adults and clinicians
- Deliver — a documented design system (typography, components, states, contrast rules) and full screen specs, with close engineering partnership through implementation
Outcome
By version 3, completion time dropped significantly and clarification questions fell sharply — better patient experience, smoother clinical workflow, more reliable data. I also cut future setup and build time by ~50% by making the flow configurable rather than hard-coded.
