Designing systems that work for the people who need them most.

Patient readiness, appointment and referral management

Patients were attending appointments despite existing digital notifications, not because of them. Most prepared out of anxiety due to unclear information. This project was about fixing the basics: designing one national standard that works for all patients, across all regional providers, regardless of what software sits underneath.

The problem

A patient gets a notification: "virtual appointment booked." They don't know if that means video or telephone. They don't know whether to travel. So they prepare for both, just in case. The challenge wasn't building a single feature. It was designing one standard flexible enough to work across hundreds of regional providers running different software generations, without exposing technical complexity to the patient.

Research, five rounds, 100+ participants

Every round included participants with low digital confidence, visual impairments, and mental health conditions. The same core finding surfaced every time: patients lacked confidence in notifications and compensated with stressful personal workarounds.

What I designed

Consultation medium. A clear, consistent label for how every appointment takes place: in person, telephone, or video. Each type required its own variant with different information hierarchy. A telephone appointment explicitly clarifies that no travel is required. A video appointment surfaces a joining link, setup guidance, and fallback instructions.

Confirm attendance. Patients confirm they can attend, with three design variants depending on underlying provider system capabilities. Designed to reduce missed appointments while accounting for vastly different tech stacks.

Video joining. Three distinct states: link opens in-app, in browser, or is unavailable, each with fallback guidance and no dead ends.

Governance and clinical safety

I led the UCD deliverables through formal Design Assurance processes and clinical safety sign-off. This involved scoping hazard workshops, coordinating cross-functional inputs, and presenting directly to governance boards from submission to formal sign-off, enabling rollout across connected providers.

Reflection

Designing at scale means designing for constraints you'll never fully see. The most impactful decisions weren't the most visually dramatic: where to surface clinic location context, or how to phrase a telephone appointment confirmation, mattered far more to patient confidence than complex visual layouts.

Questionnaires and documents, mental health settings

Standard portal designs weren't built for specialized mental health settings, where patients may be in distress, where cognitive load is elevated, and where rigid design patterns can trigger unnecessary anxiety. This project adapted and uplifted these experiences for specialized healthcare providers nationwide.

The problem

Standard design patterns that work for routine care, mandatory question completion, "to do" badges, or bright visual urgency tags, caused anxiety in mental health service users. Standard questionnaire steps forced patients to answer linearly, breaking existing non-digital patient habits and leading to task abandonment.

Research, 69+ participants across three methods

Research included unmoderated sessions testing content formats, one-to-one usability testing with mental health service users (including participants with neurodivergence or sensory impairments), and quantitative validation rounds.

Key design decisions

Flexible navigation flow. Introduced functional pattern changes allowing patients to view and navigate questions out of strict order without loss of progress, directly informed by clinical and accessibility evidence.

Contextual guidance screens. Added clear "what to expect" content before tasks start, and optional content warnings for sensitive topics, reducing unexpected emotional friction.

Cognitive load reduction. Updated task language to neutral tone, changing action-heavy imperative verbs to supportive guidance. Hidden completed tasks by default to keep the current view focused.

Save and pause options. Explicitly surfaced progress saving across all steps, reassuring users they could complete forms in multiple sessions.

Outcome

Designs passed formal clinical safety reviews and UCD governance, expanding into active deployment across regional mental health providers.

Rescheduling, designing around system constraints

Not all regional providers can stream real-time calendar availability to a central application. Historically, this meant patients attempting to reschedule hit dead ends, causing high contact centre volumes and missed appointments. The goal was to design an inclusive experience that adapts across varying provider tech capabilities.

Research and key findings

Key decisions

Three configurable journeys. Live slot selection, preference selection (time and day availability choices), and request-based routing for complex care plans requiring prior clinical triage.

Single-screen selection. Reduced multi-step preference forms into consolidated accessible layouts with conditional fields, tested thoroughly with screen reader users.

Outcome framing. Reordered confirmation screens to show request status, next steps, and realistic response timeframes upfront.

Outcome

All three journey variations passed programme governance, reducing dead ends for non-integrated providers while maintaining clear patient expectations.

Patient-led booking, interaction standards

In specific clinical pathways, booking responsibilities sit with the patient upon receiving an invitation rather than through automatic appointment assignment. This project establishes consistent interaction models for self-directed booking across public digital channels.

Scope and design focus

My UCD responsibilities span from scoping user needs and interaction principles to delivering component guidelines and accessibility specs:

1. Differentiating invitation states visually and structurally from confirmed appointments
2. Designing intuitive calendar and slot selection patterns for web and mobile contexts
3. Structuring real-time booking confirmation states and error recovery pathways
4. Defining technical specifications and interaction requirements for integration teams

Value

Establishing clear interaction patterns ensures consistency across varied technical providers while maintaining accessibility and clarity for end users.

HCI dissertation

My final year dissertation focused on human-computer interaction principles and user accessibility methods. This research background forms the foundation for the evidence-based design methods I apply on public sector digital services.

The project involved defining research questions, gathering empirical participant data, conducting usability evaluations, and translating analytical findings into functional UI recommendations.