MoveIt Pro

Project Overview

The Problem

PickNik is a small robotics startup that has some truly unique software for very specific use cases. Their flagship products is MoveIt Pro, a software platform for visualizing, planning, and executing robot trajectories. However, they were having a difficult time getting users to adopt the software due to a lack of clear documentation and a lack of an intuitive user interface.

The Team

• (1) Product Owner: Responsible for defining the product vision and roadmap.
• (1) Scrum Master: Responsible for ensuring the team is working in an agile manner.
• (1) Lead UX Designer (Me): Responsible for creating the user interface and experience and maintaining consistency across the application and design system.
• (2) Secondary UX Designers: Assisted the lead designer with the design of the application.
• (3) UX Researchers: Responsible for conducting user research and gathering feedback from users.
• (1) UI Designer: Responsible for finalizing the visual design of the application and ensuring it is pixel perfect.
• (1) Internal Technical Lead: Responsible for building the backend of the application.
• (5+) Developers: Responsible for building the front and backend of the application.

My Mandate

• Enhance Usability: Reduce treatment setup and monitoring time for doctors, nurses and PCTs.
• Maintain Consistency: Ensure the program synchronizes in both form and function with all other CWOW related applications, including health records, patient portal, treatment plans, and supply/medication orders.
• Reduce Training Time: Reduce the time required to train new PCTs by at least 30%.

Discovery

Proof of Concept

My first task was to create a proof of concept that would demonstrate the feasibility of the project, which had an additional mandate: tablet-first design. Basically, certain stakeholders wanted to see if it was possible to provide existing functionality on an iPad in order to pursue a big partnership with Apple. I was put in charge of two UX designers to help create this 100+ screen interactive proof of concept over a single sprint.

Research & Insights

• User Interviews: Conducted multiple user interviews with clinicians, nurses and PCTs to understand their workflow and pain points.
• Contextual Enquiries: Obtained feedback from the same users about their experience with the existing desktop kiosk and if they would like to see the proposed tablet-based solution integrated into their workflow.
• Competitive Analysis: Analyzed the market for similar products and services.
• Mental Models & Task Flows: Created mental models and task flows for the existing desktop kiosk and the proposed tablet-based solution.

Problem & Business Goal

While we had succeeded in creating the proof of concept, we had also discovered via initial user feedback that using a tablet was not only problematic for hygiene reasons, but also because it was not actually faster than the existing desktop kiosk due to the lack of screen real estate needed to properly monitor the patient. This is where I suggested we pivot the project to a desktop or web app based solution, much to the chagrin of the product stakeholders and executives, but with the backing of the entire UX and engineering teams.

Design

Define & Ideate

• Problem statement: “How might we let clinicians start treatment faster on existing monitors without compromising sterility?”
• Personas: Created personas for the three main user groups:
  • Doctor: Typically visits patients only when needed, not always on-site during treatment, needs to be able to review historical data and treatment plans.
  • Nurse: Problem solving during treatment, juggling multiple patients and tasks, high stress environment.
  • PCT: Focus on efficiency and quickly jumping between patients, hygiene-heavy (300+ pairs of gloves used per shift, kiosk maintenance), high turnover rate.
• Ideation: Mapped out three concepts:
  • Tablet‑only solution: (rejected do to initial feedback and hygiene concerns).
  • Hybrid kiosk: (too costly and not as efficient as the existing desktop kiosk).
  • Web‑app: The (offline‑first) solution won the feasibility × impact matrix (9 / 10) due to the ability to provide the same functionality as the existing desktop kiosk, but with the added benefit of being able to be used on any device with a web browser.

Design Solution

• Design System: Created a modern desktop-first design system (that still maintained best practices for touch interaction) to be used by the entire team across all parts of the CWOW product suite to ensure consistency.
• Information Architecture: Created a new information architecture for the web app that was more intuitive and easier to navigate.
• Visual Design: Created a new visual design for the web app that was more modern and consistent with the design system.
• Prototyping: Created a new prototype for the web app that was more realistic and accurate to the design system.
• Mouse Integration: Added the ability for clinicians to use a mouse to assist in navigating the new UI while learning hotkeys (especially helpful to new users).

Testing

Evaluation & Iteration

• User Testing: Conducted multiple usability tests across the country with all user types to ensure the new design was intuitive and easy to use.
• A/B Testing: Conducted A/B testing to compare the new design with the existing desktop kiosk to determine if the new design was actually faster and more efficient.
• Feedback Analysis: Analyzed the feedback from the testing sessions and used it to iterate on the design.
• Multiple Iterations: Iterated on the design multiple times based on the feedback from the testing sessions.

Validation

Impact & Outcomes

• Time-on-Task Reduction: ~30% per patient → ≈ millions of dollars saved in labor costs.
• Training Time Reduction: Nearly an 80% reduction in training time for new PCTs, taking the required supervised training time from 6 months to 1 month.
• Adoption: 92% of pilot clinicians rated the app “essential.”
• Overall Satisfaction: 4.87 / 5 stars from dozens of clinicians surveyed across the country.

Reflection

• What I’d do differently: Run a 3‑month longitudinal study to capture post‑deployment learning curves and refine predictive alerts.
• Future work: Integrate AI‑driven treatment suggestions (auto‑adjust flow rates based on vitals trends).
• Personal growth: Learned to pivot quickly from a flashy tablet vision to a pragmatic, offline‑first solution, exactly the kind of real‑world problem solving many companies need.