Challenge

Adolescents in Rwanda lack access to high-quality sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information and services to prevent unplanned pregnancy, unsafe abortion, and HIV/STIs. While the government has focused efforts on clinics to provide youth SRH care, young people are drawn to the quick and discreet service provided by pharmacies.

Design Research Insights

From design research, we found that while pharmacists see more youth than any other branch of the healthcare system because of the low opportunity costs associated with accessing contraception at a pharmacy, pharmacists are rarely trained in youth-friendly services, and they often do not realize they are biased.

Moreover, when young people go to the pharmacy to buy contraceptives methods, they feel embarrassed if they are being asked personal questions e.g. “when was the last time you had unprotected sex”? Sometimes youth feel so uncomfortable or judged that they leave the pharmacy without getting the method that they need, and therefore miss the opportunity on protecting them against unplanned pregnancy. However, these are medically necessary questions that the pharmacists need to understand in order to provide appropriate contraceptive method recommendations.

Co-design with Healthcare Providers

I led multiple interviews, co-design workshops and contextual inquiries with pharmacists and other healthcare providers in order to understand:

• How to balance pharmacists’ desire to counsel and ask questions, and youth’s desire for the quickest process possible

• How to best integrate the new ordering service in their current work flow

• What are the value propositions that attract the pharmacies owners and the pharmacists

I created a youth and provider user journey to evaluate the desirability and feasibility of the contraceptive order experience with providers, and I incorporated the key learnings in an order experience service blueprint. During the workshop, we also learned that:

• Refusal of service could be an expression of care. Sometimes healthcare providers refuse to give youth certain methods like pills because they were afraid that these young people would misuse them, and that’s coming from a place of care. Despite healthcare providers’ best intentions, they did not realize they were being biased.

• They are proud to fulfill their duty as a healthcare provider. They feel that it is their responsibility to provide counseling services to youth so that they can ensure youth are using the contraceptive methods safely.

To explore the tension between the desire for pharmacists to help, and youths’ desire for privacy, we ask ourselves:

How might we design an order fulfillment experience that reassures providers of youth’s safety, and is quick and private for youth?   

User Flow & Notification System

We found that pharmacists wanted to have a SMS notification system in addition to having an online B2B platform for order management, since they want to receive SMS messages but not Email notifications on their phones.

The conversations with pharmacists and youth helped us understand the set of questions that are medically necessary, and we eliminated questions that providers are asking to feel that they are fulfilling their duty as providers. Based on the insight, I created the following flow to explore how users go through the shopping flow in the CyberRwanda youth-facing app, how those answers would be handled in the backend, and be sent to the pharmacists as a part of the SMS and Email order notification.

Information Architecture & Specs

Based on the CyberRwanda youth-facing brand guideline, I expanded the guideline and created the pharmacists-facing UI component library. I also created the information architecture, detailed specifications and interactive prototypes for the developers to make sure there is no guess work.

The Final Design

The final CyberRwanda role-based B2B platform serves both healthcare providers and internal administrative staff. The platform is currently live in Rwanda and is being used by thousands of providers throughout the entire country.

Features for Healthcare Providers

• Onboarding: Set up the essential pharmacy and product details when they first enroll their pharmacies

• Order Management: Review youth’s answers to medically necessary questions, change order status

• Inventory Management: Update product pricing, change product availability

• Order Performances: Understand the latest metrics on orders

• Order Notifications: Select who and how (Email or SMS) the order notifications are received

• Pharmacy Management: Change the pharmacy information shown to youth

Interactive Prototype - Healthcare Providers Onboarding

Features for Administrative Staff Only:

• Facility Directory: Manage facilities in Rwanda, including private pharmacies and public healthcare facilities

• Product Catalogue: Update product description

• CMS (Content Management System) for the youth-facing app - Story, FAQ’s, Technical Support: Update the youth-facing stories and questions

Interactive Prototype - Admin

Back to My Work