Product Design for an EEG device used in Opioid Use Disorder
Project summary
The overall objective of Neurotype is to develop a mobile brain-sensing electroencephalogram (EEG) device to detect sign-tracking, a brain correlate of drug craving and drug use. The proposed product is NeuromarkR™, a platform to be used with commercial mobile EEG headsets by EEG non-expert care providers, that will objectively detect drug craving in patients undergoing treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD). Our focus was on giving the client a prototype to continue testing and get grant money as well as provide them with more research into this space with practitioners.
Deliverables
Findings & Recommendations
Wireframes
Prototype
Design system
My role
My role was in creating the initial versions of the data visualization, designing the logo, and creating the outline and designing the slides for our client presentation. I also played a part in creating our research plan and conducted one of the interviews with a practitioner.
Client
Neurotype
Users
Practitioners administering Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) treatment
Patients in treatment for OUD
Methods & Tools
Competitor audit, user journey mapping, user interviews, prototyping, usability testing, Figma, Google Slides
Getting to know the problem space
As a group, we did secondary research into this problem space as well as interviewing our stakeholder, Scott Burwell, founder of Neurotype, Inc.
Goal
Understand the constraints and opportunity
Method
Competitor audit and stakeholder interview
We synthesized our findings in a shared Notion doc.
Documenting the journey
Once we did this initial research and got an understanding from Scott about his expectations, we created a high-level site map and user journey.
This map was designed by my group member, Laura Gunther to summarize the user journey.
Customer interviews
We spoke with 11 participants in the medical field ranging from people specialized in Opioid Use Disorder treatment to therapists at smaller practices. With them, we got an understanding of the OUD treatment process, their need as practitioners, and their initial reactions to our prototype throughout our movement from low fidelity wireframes to high fidelity prototyping.
We learned from our research that practitioners need data to back up Neurotype’s claims that brain reactivity is related to a patient’s progress through treatment and is a useful metric to track.
Beyond that, practitioners already have a lot of content to get through with patients. In order for wide use, ideally, a session with the Neurotype tool should take 10-15 min.
Lastly, institutions must have enough relevant patients to warrant the cost. Because of this, we think that Neurotype would fit best in treatment centers that specialize in OUD rather than smaller clinics.
We conducted our interviews and usability tests remotely over Zoom.
Prototyping with Figma
We created an interactive prototype in Figma based on our initial sitemap and research. The main elements were:
Check-in led by the practitioner
Way to connect the EEG bluetooth headset
Photo activity meant to measure a patient’s brain waves and reactivity (via the EEG device)
Dashboard that showed data visualizations of the past session and all time progress
Creating a new logo and design system that conveyed value
We wanted to create a design system that felt forward thinking and approachable.
Our solution
Our solution was an overall experience that gathered data from the EEG headset through a photo activity with the patient and presented the data back to the practitioner in an easy to understand format. This quantitative data was designed to help de-stigmatize Opioid Use Disorder and help supplement qualitative data gathered during a patient’s treatment.
