Alzheimer's Speech Analysis App for
iOS and Android @ Brain Trauma Assessment Protocols under the Georgia Tech College of Engineering

Background & Goals of the Brain Trauma Assessment Protocols

Brain Trauma Assessment Protocols (BTAP) is a VIP program led by Dr. Elliot Moore at the Georgia Institute of Technology's College of Engineering. The Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) Program is a transformative approach to engage Georgia Tech students in ambitious, long-term, large-scale, multidisciplinary project teams that are led by faculty.

The goals of BTAP's are to build a suite of mobile applications for iOS and Android devices that will be used to administer and collect data from individuals who have suffered brain traumas with lingering effects (e.g., stroke leading to Aphasia, Alzheimer’s, etc.). The apps will be based on established protocols of clinical assessment including (but not limited to) the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB), Aphasia Depression Rating Scale (ADRS), and the Halstead Reitan Battery (HRB). The BTAP team was required to make novel use of the touch, audio, and video capabilities of mobile devices to administer the listed protocols to collect and analyze the following information from affected individuals: visual, auditory, and tactual input; verbal communication; spatial and sequential perception; the ability to analyze information, form mental concepts, and make judgments; motor output; and attention, concentration, and memory.

Before the UX Team

User Research

For both the BTAP ongoing project as well as the Alzheimer’s Speech Analysis app, we wanted to design apps with a readable and intuitive UI as it related to age (elements such as ensuring font size was big enough, what type of font should be used, etc.). Information flow had to be simple to understand for our patients, especially in the Alzheimer’s Speech Analysis app, as many of our users would be older people using the mobile application. We also wanted to keep in mind that many of our users may have colorblind accessibility issues, and constantly iterated on creating an experience that addressing this.

We kept in mind user questions, such as the user’s demographic (age, gender, and race), but also their familiarity with technology. Is the user most familiar with Android or iOS? How do we create an experience for both operating systems that looks clean and uniform from our end, but makes the most sense to the individual user using that particular operating system? When is the patient or physician going to be using this app — at home? In an office? As the UX team, we had to ask ourselves these questions in order to make sure we thought holistically about our user experience.

Initial Wireframes

Final Screens for the Face-Name Recall Test

Takeaways

Apps & Tools for Brain Trauma Assessment Protocols was the longest medical application project I have worked on in my user experience design career - and it came with many challenges. Although creating a beautiful user interface is important when delivering a great product to your clients, it can also affect usability. For example, color and font played such a large role in this project, since readability could affect the outcome of an in-home test the patients would perform.

Another obstacle I faced while working with our team of biomedical engineers and the physicians from Emory University and Georgia State University was the various example images and text we show throughout the applications. To name a few questions that were running through my mind....

* In the Multilingual Naming Test, should each challenge have pictures of items that sound alike?
* Does having a timer at the bottom affect the patients emotions, and ultimately their results on the test?
* How much good does a patient get out of seeing the status of how far they are into the test with the progress bar, versus a negative effect on the test itself?

I enjoyed working on this project, and hope to work on medical devices/healthcare applications in the near future.