Timeline
Mar. 2024 - May. 2024
My Role
Interaction Design
Design Research
Storyboarding
UI/UX
Prototyping
Video Production
Graphic Design


Team
Kay Qiu
Kevin Shang
Academic Advisors
Auldyn Matthews
Sinan Goral


Overview
What is YUPI?
Yupi is an AI-powered platform that transforms healthcare communication, enhancing the urgent care experiences for both patients and providers. Yupi aims to improve accessibility and transparency in medical communicaations for both patients and providers. It features real-time medical translation, 3D smart displays for showcasing medical models, helps doctors to explain medical jargons, and uses natural language processing to help people experiences language barriers to shcedule medicl appointment.



Design Challenge

Navigating information is difficult due to limited support, anxious waiting times, academic jargon, and language barriers.
Our Solution

Through the design of Yupi, we aim to break the language barriers in the Urgent Care Experiences by improving clarity and transparency in multi-language medical communications. In the Design of YUPI, we implemented conversational AI agents via interactive smart boards, AI pins and mobile phone can improve patient-clinician communication and patient experience in urgent care by providing clear, consistent information to patients throughout their visit.
Design Outcome
Concept Video




YUPI Helps Patients to Navigate through Complex Healthcare System

For patients, Yupi simplifies the urgent care journey by allowing patients to schedule appointments through natural language that the patient is comfortable and confident with. The user can select language for translation, or they can send any request to Yupi by speaking to it directly. In particular, this feature empowers patients with language barriers, ensuring they can navigate their urgent effortlessly and confidently.





YUPI Helps Patients to get Prepared and Gain Confidence for their Urgent Care Visits

The second feature is navigation through check-in process. Yupi’s design integrates motion states, natural conversation and internet of things, complemented by professional, up-to-date information from the professional database to facilitate a smooth, stress-free check-in process for patients.




YUPI is an Inclusive Personal Medical Assistance 

YUPI is a conversational AI agent designated for urgent-care visits
who communicates key information to you in your language. Yupi is not just a chatbot, it serves as a personal guide through the complex urgent care system for patients. After the visit, It still keeps patients connected with urgent care services, ensuring they have continuous access, such as follow-up questions, whenever needed. 




YUPI is an Inclusive Professional Medical Assistance and AI Agent 

For healthcare providers, in the doctor’s office, Yupi serves as a professional assistant, its highly adaptable, and can live in different modalities including clinician desktops, facilitates multi-stakeholders communication within the urgent care system. 




YUPI is powered by AI to deliver real-time Medical Translation

In the exam room, Yupi enhances medical consultation communication through real-time medical translation supported by a robust healthcare database. The smart board integrated in Yupi uses innovative design features like 3D displays to break down language barriers and clarify medical jargons, ensuring clear and transparent communication between patients and providers.





YUPI is a smart connected platform that improve transparency and clarity in medical communication.

The design of Yupi It's about creating a seamless flow of information that enhances the quality of care. The Yupi Ecosystem, based on IoT technology, harnesses data to drive improvements, making each interaction between its users smarter and more responsive tailored towards individual patient needs.




Research
Why Urgent Care

We were tasked to enhance accessibility in a public space of interest, making these areas more inclusive and user-friendly for everyone, regardless of their abilities, by leveraging new technologies including conversational agent and smart materials. 
Why Designing for People who Experience Language Barriers?

Designing for people who experience language barriers addresses a critical need within the diverse demographic landscape of the United States, where over 67 million residents speak a language other than English at home. These individuals often face significant challenges in accessing healthcare services effectively due to language constraints, which can lead to miscommunications, misunderstandings, and ultimately, disparities in the quality of care received. By creating solutions tailored to overcome these barriers, we ensure that all patients have equitable access to healthcare information and services, fostering a more inclusive system. This not only enhances patient engagement and satisfaction but also improves health outcomes by ensuring that patients fully understand their medical conditions and treatment plans. Designing with language accessibility in mind is therefore not just about compliance or convenience; it's about upholding the fundamental right to health and well-being for every individual, regardless of their linguistic background.
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Auditing Current Urgent Care Experience

We visited UPMC Urgent Care multiple times and we also visited the most popular urgent care cinics here at Pittsburgh including Minute.Clinic at CVS, Concentra Urgent Care, and Medexpress Urgent Care.


Difficulty in Navigating Information

The patients, especially who visit urgent care for their first time, always find its hard to gather the information they need and its always a bit of struggle for them to figure out the right person to ask for help or information. 





Limited Supportive Resources and anxious waiting time for people speaks English as a second Langugage

The clinicians were all very busy and occupied. We have to wait for a long time in queue before get to talk to a nurse to get more information about the process. There was also no language support on site. 





People have language barriers are always confused by academic Jargons and don’t always have timely access to Medical Interpretors that suit their personal needs






Current Urgent Care Experiences in U.S.A for People who speaks English as a second language.






Design Concepts 
Initial Design Concepts





Iterated Design Concepts




Final Design Concepts










Our Concepts development (Before and After)



Final Concepts - Intent and Motivations

The final concepts of the YUPI project are rooted in a clear intent to improve the patient experience by addressing key challenges related to communication barriers in healthcare settings. YUPI aims to transform the way patients comprehend medical information, ensuring that it is accessible and understandable regardless of their language proficiency or familiarity with medical terminology. The system seeks to empower patients by providing clear, concise, and contextual information that enhances their understanding of their health conditions and treatments.

By focusing on patients who face language barriers, YUPI intends to address and reduce disparities in healthcare access and outcomes. The project is motivated by the ethical imperative to ensure that all patients receive equitable care, which includes the ability to fully understand and participate in their own healthcare decisions.

YUPI is designed to streamline various processes within the healthcare system, such as scheduling, check-in, and follow-up communications, making these processes more efficient for both patients and healthcare providers. This efficiency not only saves time but also increases overall satisfaction by reducing the stress and confusion often associated with medical visits.


YUPI Logo Design




YUPI Typography



YUPI CUI(Conversational User Interface) Motion State Design




YUPI Colors



YUPI Mobile Design



YUPI Clinician Desktop Design




YUPI Board Design






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YUPI Visual Identity 





YUPI Marketing




Reflection
What Went Well

One of the significant achievements of our project was the ability to clearly and compellingly express your concept to a variety of stakeholders, including potential users, healthcare providers, and potential investors. 


    Challenges Encountered

    One primary challenge was gaining a deep understanding of the properties and capabilities of various smart materials. This includes how these materials can be engineered to respond to environmental stimuli—like temperature changes, pressure, or even the presence of certain chemicals—and how these responses can be beneficial in a healthcare context.



    How we overcame challenges

    Each iteration provided an opportunity to test the storyboards against real-world conditions and feedback. This allowed the team to make incremental improvements that significantly enhanced the final product's functionality and user interface.

    We created rototypes based on these storyboards could be tested for practicality and effectiveness, with subsequent revisions ensuring that the final designs were both feasible and functional.


    Key Learning and Takeaways

    For future, Yupi sets an ambitious vision to ensure everyone can take automony in their own healthcare. Yupi aims to create an equitable healthcare environment where every patient, no matter their ability, feeld understood, valued and cared for
    By taking these steps, YUPI can significantly expand its impact, making healthcare communication more accessible and effective for a broader audience, including those who face language, hearing, and vision barriers. This strategic expansion not only enhances individual user experience but also contributes to a more equitable healthcare system.



    Special Thanks to Our Avisors: 

    A huge thank you goes out to our advisors, Auldyn Matthews and Sinan Goral! Their guidance has been transformative for the design of YUPI. Their critical feedback have profoundly shaped our approach to the work. 

    With their support, we were able to push our ideas further in each iteration, transforming Yupi into a solution that truly resonates with users and the problem space. Their insights and encouragement have not only helped us navigate complex challenges but have also made the journey more rewarding.

    We are immensely grateful for all the time and wisdom they have shared.




    Next Steps
    Expanding Language Support

    Moving forward, we hope to continue developing the concept of Yupi with the ambition to address the needs of healthcare providers who speak different languages and patients with hearing and vision impairments through a more strategic and inclusive design approach. In the future, Yupi could be integrated with more advanced language processing technologies to support a wider range of languages and dialects, facilitating communication between providers and patients who both speak different languages as their preferred languages. By employing machine learning models, Yupi can also adpat and improve their language capabilities based on user interactions, faciliated nuances in communication of different cultural contexts, ensuring accuray and cultural approriatenes in translations. 

    Moreover, Yupi can develop training modules and resources for healthcare providers to effectively us YUPI in multilingual environments, enhancing their ability to communicate with patients who have limited proficiency in the dominant language of the region.


    Enhancing Support for People Experience Hearing Impairments

    Yupi is a smart system that include YUPI PIN hardware with a camera built-in that is able to read and convert sign-language into natural speech that doctors can understand. The implementation of sign language recognition capabilities using computer vision and AI to intepret sign language ensure the system includes support for major sign languages systems and considers regional variations to maximize its effectiveness and inclusivity. 

    Yupi can also integrate visual and tactile feedback ystems,incorporate visual aids, such as on-screen text and symbols, that can complement or replace audio responses from YUPI.

    Moreover,
    we hope to continue exploring tactile feedback mechanisms, such as vibrations or haptic interfaces, which can provide communication cues for users with hearing impairments.



    Enhancing Support for People Experience Vision Impairments

    For next steps, we can also develop audio-Enhanced feasures that enhance YUPI’s conversational interface to deliver high-quality, natural-sounding audio explanations and instructions, making it accessible for visually impaired users. For example, we could design voice commands and feedback to facilitate navigation and interaction without the need for visual cues.

    Furthermore, we also hope to  explore more integration with assistive technologies to ensure  compatibility with exsiting assistive technologies such as screen readers and Braille displays, alllowing visually impaired users to interact with YUPI seamlessly. We will also consider the development of specialized peripherals that can work with YUPI to enhance accessibility for users with severe vision impairments.



    Advocacy and Awareness-Raising
    For next steps, we also hope to delve deeper into the possibilities of Yupi as a speculative design solution that can also promote inclusivity in Healthcare. We see the future of Yupi to be used as a platform to advocate for greater inclusivity and accessibility in healthcare technology.  YUPI can help to highlight the importance of addressing communication barriers in healthcare settings and demonstrate how technology can help bridge these gaps.















    Designing for meaningful impact.


    freyayoung.design@gmail.com
    Pittsburgh, PA
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