About - Panacea Digital

Discussing user testing findings with the Co-op team.

My mission is to help people live healthier, happier lives through useful and usable digital health products.

When I quit my last full-time job in 2017 and decided to set up as an independent design consultant, I had the freedom to choose who I wanted to work with.

I chose to focus on working with healthcare startups because I wanted to know that the products I work on have a real, meaningful and positive impact on the lives of their users. A bonus is working on products I can relate to myself – I probably tried every single fitness and meditation app out there 😉

I’ve spent most of my career in a hybrid designer-researcher role, so I wholeheartedly believe in user-centred design and continually testing assumptions.

I know that a lot of health tech businesses realise they need to incorporate more user research or co-design, but they are struggling to do so. They either don’t know where to start or don’t have sufficient resources.

Being specialised in digital health puts me in a unique position to conduct independent user testing of health and wellbeing apps and share guidelines and recommendations with healthcare startups. This way product teams that aren’t in a position to start custom research projects can still benefit from solid, insight-driven advice to create useful and usable digital health apps.

Professional experience

After graduating from Design Futures in 2013, I worked as a UX designer and user researcher both in-house (Sage and the Co-op) and as a consultant. Working in a global software consultancy allowed me to travel around the world and help develop web applications for some of the most know companies like MasterCard (US), Swegon (Sweden), Danfoss (Denmark) and Julius Baer (Switzerland).

Having a hybrid designer-researcher skillset allows me to connect the dots between the two and develop research insight that translates to useful and actionable product recommendations and opportunities.

In 2017 I launched Panacea Digital and focused on independent user testing of health and wellbeing apps and working with healthcare startups.

Education and courses

BA Hons Design Futures, University of Salford, Manchester, UK
E-learning course ‘E-health: Opportunities and Challenges’, Karolinska Institute

Selected projects

Co-op Health

https://www.coop.co.uk/health

Repeat prescription service by Co-op Health. I helped the team understand user needs and validate product strategy. Over the course of the project I conducted nearly 40 interviews with chronic condition patients.

User interviews / user surveys

WeWa.life

Digital health platform combining behavioural science, smartphone and IoT technologies.

I worked with the founder to formulate product strategy, then prototype and test the concept. The prototype was selected as one of the semifinalists of the AHRQ ‘Care Transitions’ challenge.

https://www.ahrq.gov/mcctransitions-challenge/about.html

UX strategy / prototyping / user survey / remote workshops

Revitalised

https://www.revitalised.co.uk

A B2B health and wellbeing platform used by some of the biggest global brands. I helped the team completely overhaul the UX of the platform. I facilitated a UX strategy workshop where we used BCT taxonomy developed by UCL to ideate ways to incorporate behaviour change techniques into the UI of the platform.

UX strategy workshop / user testing / UX design

Testimonials

“Marta’s insights and knowledge have enabled me to make informed product decisions quickly, always keeping the user in focus, and to make changes that make a real difference to how people use, and perceive, the product.”

∼ Derek Harvie
Product Manager, Co-op Health

“Marta was an invaluable asset to Revitalised, helping us to understand the product that our clients truly want and then helping our product team to design it. She was a pleasure to work with and we will always see her as one of the team.”

∼ David Thomas
Managing Director, Revitalised

“Marta’s ability to synthesise findings and develop insight useful for the design and product teams has been used as an example of best practice.

Marta has been a well respected, trusted and popular member of each team she has worked with.”

∼ James Boardwell
Head of User Research, The Co-op

Work with me

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