Stroke Association Shop

Project Overview

The Stroke Association is a charity that supports people affected by stroke, offering information, rehabilitation resources, and emotional support to stroke survivors and their families. They fund research into stroke prevention helping reduce its impact with a significant goal to ensure everyone has the best possible chance of recovery and a fulfilling life after a stroke.

The Stroke Association’s shop focuses on accessibility and functionality to enhance usability, ensuring an inclusive e-commerce experience tailored to the needs of individuals affected by strokes.

The Problem

Stroke survivors often experience a range of impairments, including challenges with cognitive communication, awareness, memory, physical coordination, paralysis, sensory difficulties, and emotional regulation, such as anxiety, depression, or irritability. These diverse needs create unique challenges in designing accessible digital products for them.

Solution / Project Summary

Design process

Understanding The User

To gain a deep understanding of the problems and needs of stroke survivors, interviews and focus groups were used to empathise and understand the frustrations and pain points that stroke survivors face when interacting with digital products online.

User Research: Pain Points

• Stroke survivors often find it hard to concentrate for long periods, making it tough to complete complex tasks or navigate websites with many steps or confusing user flows.

• Many stroke survivors struggle to make precise movements, like clicking small buttons or selecting text, due to motor impairments.

• Strokes can leave survivors with blurry vision, partial blindness, or poor visual colour contrast, which make reading and using digital products harder.

• Struggling with technology can lead to feelings of frustration, helplessness or embarrassment, causing stroke survivors to avoid digital products as they want to feel competent and self sufficient.

User Research: Summary

After conducting research, I was able to understand and empathise with stroke survivors. I recognised that the shop needed to be very user-friendly with clear instructions and easy navigation. This includes incorporating bold colours, easy-to-read text, and simple user flows that can be navigated effortlessly. These design elements ensure that both stroke survivors and screen readers can easily follow the interface, promoting accessibility and inclusivity for the best shopping experience whilst accommodating stroke survivors’ specific needs.

Design Considerations

Personas and User Journey

Using results gathered from user interviews enabled me to understand pain points and create personas focused on the typical user. This enabled me to stay on track during the design process to address needs and solve the users’ problems.

Problem Statement

After analysing the needs of user goals and frustrations of stroke survivors, I synthesised the data and formed a problem statement; I used this as a guide and reference point during the brainstorming and idea generating phase to aid with my design.

Stroke survivors face unique challenges when interacting with digital platforms due to cognitive, physical, sensory, and emotional impairments, which can make online shopping frustrating and inaccessible. The Stroke Association’s shop seeks to address these barriers by creating an inclusive and accessible e-commerce experience that caters to the diverse needs of stroke survivors, ensuring ease of use, independence, and a supportive environment for satisfaction and engagement.

Information Architecture

To identify where the redesign would be most effective, I built out the information architecture to understand the structure and further see how stroke survivors will navigate through the shopping process, ensuring the flow was simple and easy to complete with opportunities for help at all times via supporter relations.

Synthesis: Key Opportunities

• Stroke survivors need simple and easy to use navigation, with large buttons and clear layouts to make shopping accessible, even with limited mobility or coordination.

• Stroke survivors need clear and straightforward language to help users with memory or understanding challenges find and choose products without confusion.

• Stroke survivors need a calm and supportive design, with clear images which will reduce anxiety and make the shopping experience more enjoyable, ensuring they can call on help when necessary.

Mid Fidelity Wireframes

Creating mid-fidelity wireframes, I designed and prototyped the core user flows to refine design concepts and uncover potential usability issues early on. This process focused on exploring functionality, user journeys, and visual hierarchy. I collaborated with the team to test the designs and made iterative improvements based on feedback.

Usability Study Changes

• Button size was reduced as testing showed it did not increase accessibility as intended, but made it more difficult for users to complete the action of changing quantities, causing panic and frustration for users.

High Fidelity Screens