Rob had become frustrated with the existing case management tools used by Dental Laboratories and Clinics. A few months earlier,Rob had discovered Bubble.io and thought he could create a case management system - for his laboratory and others especially designed for efficient operations. To give you an idea, Rob and his Clients had resorted to Whatsapp groups to communicate.
After a few months of sketching out ideas in Bubble, and trying to get a product together, Rob realised he needed some help. Rob contacted me through online Bubble coaching. I liked that Rob was laser focused on efficiency and focused on a specialist case management tool for his requirements. Rob demonstrated to me existing case management tools and pointed out all their shortcomings - mainly around unused features - and operational efficiency - how many clicks to do simple frequent operations.
First, I designed a database schema to model a case management system for laboratories and dental clinics. Rob already had sufficient Bubble skills to understand what this design meant.
Then I created a functional prototype of a case management system, including all the roles, key functionality and user experience. I think one of the things that made this project successful is at this stage we rigorously focused on getting the core application functionality working very well. We intentionally invested as little time as possible on cosmetic design.
At this early stage we uncovered a vital learning. We figured out that "Chat" and instant updates to case notes, instant communication between the lab and clinics was the killer feature. I think allowing for discovery and evolving the design at this early stage was another thing that made this project successful.
If we had attempted to design up front the full product and then stuck to those wireframes we would have missed this key learning, which we only got from using a working prototype. By role playing how we expected real users to behave, on a working 3D prototype we learnt something we never could have from any 2D wireframes.
Getting to a finished product after this became straightforward. Rob’s focus on a simple, clean, efficient user experience steered us through the creation of the look and feel.
After 6 weeks, Rob was internally trialling his new case management system, and is confidently making changes in Bubble.
