Prototyping mobile search

I document here a proposed update on PHIN's search functionality, an autocomplete system that categorises results without user intervention. Moving beyond competitors' traditional filters, this mobile-first solution simplifies patient journeys while maintaining ergonomic access and removes contrived barriers whenever possible.

A strategy of incremental improvements is always the norm, but sometimes a system cannot be improved piece-meal, and an overhaul is needed. One notable example of this is a mobile-first solution to improve and simplify PHIN's website search functionality.

I performed a brief market research revealing that competitors like Doctify and TopDoctors employed various search interaction patterns: Tabs, faceted navigation, and category-based filtering. We considered the state of the art in search mechanics/dynamics warranted to move to a more "Don't Make Me Think" approach.

In parallel, our research indicated that for a non-trivial number of visitors, the use of the website could be considered a case of Emergency UX — or at the very least an understandable distress over the prospect of life-threatening illness. This was a strong rationale to eliminate all contrivances or barriers from finding the best possible healthcare practitioner.

Main design choices:

• Optional Location input, leveraging IP-based geolocation by default, with the ability for users to refine it via postcode entry or map "pin drop" via Google Maps API.
• Post-hoc categorised search results, utilised by some competitors too. This would go instead of asking users with intermediate-to-nought medical knowledge to reason wether they were searching for speciality, procedure, location, etc. For example, typing "Car" would return visually separated, categorised results such as a speciality, "Cardiology,", a provider, "Cardiff Hospital," or a procedure, "Pericardial drainage".
• Ergonomic reachability, as searching constitutes the primary function of the website, I advocated for positioning the search bar prominently at the bottom for optimal ergonomic access on first tap, then on focus when on the top. There was an argument as to keep it always on the bottom but that would clash with Safari's search bar.

Out of scope of this prototype were additional features such as:

• Searching Providers (Doctors) by first and/or last name.
• NLP to handle misspelled specialities or procedures through "Did you mean..." suggestions.