Healthcare & Wellness

Designing Research-Driven Treatment Guidelines & UX for Medical Cannabis Patients

COMPANY

Wellness and Health Enhancement Engineering Laboratory

ROLE

UX Researcher

EXPERTISE

User Research Study

YEAR

2020

Project description

Accessing healthcare that feels clear, consistent, and supportive is something many patients take for granted. But for patients using medical cannabis (MC), the lack of structured treatment guidelines leads to confusion, stigma, and inconsistent health outcomes.

When I joined this project, my goal was simple but powerful: uncover the real experiences and challenges of MC patients and clinicians. We aimed to create research-backed guidelines and UX strategies that support safe, effective treatment and improve adherence.
This was a unique opportunity to elevate patient voices and help a healthcare organization develop evidence-based strategies for MC care.

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Problem

Although medical cannabis is increasingly accepted, patients and clinicians still face major barriers:

  • Confusion about dosage & interactions: Patients lack consistent, clinically verified information.

  • Low adherence rates: Complex regimens with multiple strains, intake methods, and timing make consistency difficult.

  • Limited patient-provider communication: Without structured tracking and reporting, clinicians struggle to make informed adjustments.

  • Stigma & legal concerns: Some patients hesitate to seek support, fearing judgment or legal issues.

Research Objective: Understand how patients and clinicians currently manage MC treatment—and identify opportunities to improve:

  • Adherence

  • Education

  • Patient-provider communication

Scope & Constraints

Scope

  • Lead user research and discovery

  • Define user needs, pain points, and mental models

  • Provide insights and actionable recommendations for future UX and content strategy

Constraints:

  • Regulatory compliance (HIPAA & data privacy)

  • Medical accuracy (verified by clinical experts)

  • Limited existing research on MC adherence, requiring original qualitative insights

  • Sensitive subject matter (stigma, legality), requiring trust-building with participants

Process

Research Planning

  • Collaborated with clinical advisors to define research objectives

  • Developed screening criteria to ensure a balanced participant pool (patients, caregivers, clinicians)

  • Created a semi-structured interview guide to balance sensitivity (around legality and stigma) with deep exploration

Participant Recruitment

Recruited 15 participants across 3 groups:

  • MC patients managing chronic conditions

  • Caregivers supporting MC patients

  • Clinicians prescribing MC treatments

Primary Research Questions

  • How do patients determine the right dosage and routine?

  • What challenges do they face in symptom tracking?

  • How do they communicate with providers about MC use?

  • What tools or methods do they use today, and where do they fall short?

Findings & Insights

From these interviews, we uncovered themes that guided our UX direction.

Personas & Experience Mapping

I developed three personas to reflect key user groups:

  • Unmoderated User: Self-explores cannabis without clinician guidance

  • Self-Moderated User: Uses personal tracking tools and informal research

  • Clinician-Supervised User: Works closely with their healthcare provider

Type 1: Unmoderated User: Self-explores cannabis without clinician guidance.

Type 2: Self-Moderated User: Uses personal tracking methods for dosage

Type 3: Clinician-Supervised User: Works closely with a doctor for MC management

Experience Mapping

Mapped each persona’s journey across:

  • Onboarding (certification, prescriptions)

  • Daily Tracking (dosage, symptoms)

  • Follow-up Care (consultations, regimen adjustments)

Key Pain Points:Breaking down tasks helped prioritize UX efforts:

  • Information overload

  • Difficulty recording symptoms and interpreting data

  • Limited communication with clinicians

Task Flows & Prioritization

Breaking down each persona’s tasks helped prioritize UX improvements:

  • Symptom Tracking: Create intuitive dashboards to visualize progress

  • Dosage Management: Simplify the intake logging process (by strain, form, and time)

  • Provider Communication: Generate structured, easy-to-read reports



Solution

Our Design Solutions directly addressed the challenges identified during research and aligned with the needs of medical cannabis patients and clinicians.The goal was to simplify the complex, reduce cognitive load, and facilitate better patient-provider communication.

End-to-End User Flow

  • Onboarding (First Launch)

Purpose: Help the user understand the app and set up the essentials.

  • Welcome Screen → Brief app purpose introduction.

  • Feature Highlights → Explain key benefits: reminders, tracking, reports.

  • Permissions Request → Enable notifications for dose reminders.

Why: Building trust and guiding the user to success from day one.

  • Add Medication (Post-Onboarding or Later)

Purpose: Enter medication details for dose tracking.

  • Search for Medication → Use search/autocomplete to find a strain.

  • Manual Entry → If not found, add name, THC/CBD %, form, and schedule.

  • Set Dose Reminder → Options for Once Daily / Twice Daily / Custom.

    • If Custom, user sees a Time Picker Modal

Why: Personalized schedules build habit formation and adherence.

  • Log a Symptom (Daily Task)


    Purpose: Track treatment effectiveness and side effects.

    • Tap 'Log Symptom' CTA on Dashboard.

    • Select Symptom → e.g., Pain, Anxiety, Sleep.

    • Rate Severity → Slider from 0 (None) to 10 (Severe).

    • Notes (Optional) → Context for this symptom (e.g., after dosage?).

    • Save Log → Confirmation toast appears.

    Why: The faster and easier it is, the more likely users are to keep logging symptoms.

Share Report (Before a Doctor Appointment)

Purpose: Facilitate better clinician conversations.

  • Tap 'Share Report' CTA on Reports page.

  • Action Sheet → Options: Export PDF, Email, AirDrop.

  • UIActivityViewController → Securely send or save the report.

  • Confirmation Message → "Report shared successfully."

Why: Giving patients control builds trust and empowers them to participate actively in their care.

Tangible Results

  • Developed research-backed UX flows and prototypes for a responsive medication tracker

  • Conducted participatory design sessions with patients & clinicians to validate concepts

  • Co-authored a research paper on MC usability and patient behavior (in progress)

Lessons Learned & Reflections

  • Simplify complex medical info without compromising accuracy

  • Patients want empathy, guidance, and tools that fit their lives

  • Bridging the patient-clinician communication gap with thoughtful UX directly improves care outcomes