Tracpatch

summary

End-to-end product design with marketing support makes this a great success story. This was one of several enterprise-level products that I was involved with at Silicus, a boutique tech firm in Houston. The team at TracPatch came to us with the aim of developing a first-to-market, user-friendly product for patients and providers with a contemporary, professional design. Led by haptics expert Cartik Sharma, the team managed user experience, branding, and backend communication in agile two-week sprints, with partial offshore support. Clear client-defined personas expedited discovery, while planning organized user stories into a backlog. Branding efforts spanned logo and website design, a client portal, and a video promo, and the team collaborated with CAD professionals to finalize a “Designed in California” look for the hardware. The platform launched successfully, earning recognition in its field.

The TracPatch Challenge

• Get a vetted, functional product into the marketplace before anyone else does

•  The app UI, product design and marketing need to be contemporary and professional

•  The experience needs to be intuitive and easy for patients and providers of all ages

•  The provider interface needs to be equally digestible

The team

Presenting Cartik Sharma

I love what I do namely because of the people I meet. My partner in this particular project was a brilliant guy by the name of Cartik Sharma, one of the smartest guys in the room. I mean, check out his articles (shown). He is a haptics expert, was the active project manager, and also handled non-UX client communication while I handled experience and brand. Together we plotted out the user experience and committed these stories into our backlog.

We also worked in two-week sprints augmented by an offshore component. The offshore team I managed was partially allocated; that is to say, they worked on other projects at the same time as this one, as did I. My responsibilities were as follows:

  1. • Managing designer and development team communication on the back end with an offshore dev lead and QA lead. 
  2. • Hands-on product visual and interaction design
  3. • Working with the client to dial in the branding, look/feel of the marketing materials, hardware and software products.
DIYer
Competitive Research

DISCOVERY

Discovery was short in the sense that the personas were very clear cut and had their needs outlined very clearly by our client ahead of time. Three personas, three products.

We also worked in two-week sprints augmented by an offshore component. The offshore team I managed was partially allocated; that is to say, they worked on other projects at the same time as this one, as did I. My responsibilities were as follows:

  1. • Managing designer and development team communication on the back end with an offshore dev lead and QA lead. 
  2. • Hands-on product visual and interaction design
  3. • Working with the client to dial in the branding, look/feel of the marketing materials, hardware and software products.

PLANNING

One of our larger artifacts was a clever way of pathing and attaching user stories at the same time. We did this for all three application instances and brought everything into our backlog from there. Today I do a lot of this virtually in Miro.

BRANDING AND MARKETING

Like a small agency, we had a logo design shoot-out, designed their website and client portal, and worked with a video team for the promo reel.

HARDWARE

“Designed in California.” We designed several logos and branding options and once finalized, we worked with the client’s CAD team to create the actual product design and apply our branding to it.

INNOVATION LEADERSHIP

We built a first-to-market platform that continues to grow and expand, and continues to win accolades in its respective field. When submitted, we won the AAOS (American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons) 2017 Innovation Award. Visit tracpatch.com for the latest progress.