CPD mobile application
Helping surgeons record their professional development activities with ease
BACKGROUND
The Royal Australasian College of surgeons (RACS) is a non-profit organisation that trains surgeons and maintains surgical standards in Australia and New Zealand. The Continuing Professional Development (CPD) application helps surgeons manage their professional development activities and mandatory requirements required by the medical boards for continued registration.
MY ROLE
-
I analysed the existing CPD desktop application and conducted user interviews (both internal and external) to understand what worked and what did not for the target audience
-
conducted competitor analysis
-
created wireframes and low-fidelity to high-fidelity prototypes
PROBLEM
Surgeons are extremely time-poor and recording activities for professional development is not the most important task that they have to perform in the day, Though it is extremely important to record them to be able to practice surgery in Australia and New Zealand.
Adding activities using the desktop application was time consuming and a desktop/laptop was not accessible all the time. The desktop application wasn’t responsive.
SOLUTION
The solution was designing and developing a mobile application that:
-
could be accessed anywhere
-
was intuitive for the surgeons
-
enhanced user experience

THE PROCESS
01 RESEARCH
COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
To understand how the application’s core functions were implemented by other CPD delivering bodies, I analysed the CPD applications by Ausmed, ANZCA, RACGP, CPDme, ANMF.
INTERVIEWS
Conducted 34 external and 8 internal user interviews
02 DESIGN
HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPES

KEY TAKEAWAYS AND LEARNINGS
-
User feedback and user testing are key to good design. Asking for user feedback from time to time helped me fine-tune the designs.
-
Competitor analysis broadens understanding. The competitor analysis helped me gain insights into what was working well with a similar user group and I could build on it.
-
Do not be fixated on the first design. I couldn’t look past my first design since it appealed to me and I held on to it. But taking a step back and visualising different ways the data could be represented helped me make the use of real estate on the screen better.