healthKERI

healthKERI is a mighty startup with a great vision to revolutionize healthcare data administration. With the use of the KERI protocol, data can transmit safely end to end worry-free.

Project Goals & Timeline

Duration:
May-June 2024

Responsibility:
Sole UX Designer on MVP Concept

Healthcare Administrators send and receive data from multiple sources, when treating patients. These sources include but are not limited to insurance groups, other treatment centers and pharmacies. In the past few years we’ve seen an increase in ransomware attacks when transmitting this data. Examples of recent ransomware attacks this year alone are here, here and here. Through use of the KERI protocol, healthcare data can be transmitted securely. Our MVP gives healthcare administrators the ability to configure data pathways and track all data.

Making KERI make sense

In order to build the MVP for healthKERI, it was essential for me to have at least a high level understanding of KERI. I worked on a previous project with KERI’s protocol for GLEIF and did the following to deep-dive and increase my understanding:

  1. Read about KERI in context:
    There are some great resources out there. I got to learn from the best (Sam Smith and Phil Feairheller) but also relied on information available on his website, and information written by others in the open source community.

  2. Utilized swimlane diagrams:
    When I worked on this project with GLEIF, swimlane diagrams helped me to understand the authentication process, which involved an out of band exchange of keys as well as a challenge message. This process could involve single signatures, or multiple signatures (multi-sig). I got to work on both flows with GLEIF, so I was able to rely on the information I knew.

  3. When in doubt, sketch (and flow) it out: Phil (healthKERI CTO) provided me with some wireframe ideas that he had, and while those did change somewhat with my designs, being able to sketch and create a flow chart of how the different pieces interconnected made it easy for me to start anticipating challenges. And yes, sometimes I had to lay the individual wireframes out to truly understand 😆

It’s crucial to me to understand the underlying technology, and I love it. I will never say no to a self-sovereign identity project 🩷.

  • How might we create a dashboard where administrators can easily view data at a glance?

  • How might we create a way to help administrators recognize and understand the full set up process?

  • How might we help administrators be able to pick up where they left off? (since this is mostly set and forget functionality)

  • Maybe you have a creative project to share with the world

Iconography for Memory

It’s been shown that iconography helps users remember processes in more detail. To help with recognition, I selected icons that matched the functionality of each of the 6 main configurations that an administrator would be required to remember when setting up their data transmission in the healthKERI software. I strategically placed these icons in each of the modals in setup so that they would see and recognize them.

Provide helper text & opportunities to validate!

Healthcare administrators will likely be doing this infrequently. Once the data pathways are set up and the identifiers are in there, the real magic is performed through encryption within the back-end functionality. To make process steps easier, I utilized the helper text within the text field to help demystify jargon and also to remind them where to find their AID and Key Event Log. Text for both AIDs and Key Event Logs are long, so I also made sure to have them validate prior to saving, so they can set and forget.

All the information you need in one place

Having a tabbed dashboard with rows and columns helps a data administrator be able to view all of their data in one place. It’s searchable as well and can be filtered, to enable easy access. This was a challenge to design for, as some administrators will have many pathways, and administrators in smaller networks or areas may have fewer than 10. Regardless, the dashboard makes it easy to perform actions, with edit, assign and delete all situated within the actions kebab menu.

Final deliverables

healthKERI is moving forward with the MVP. Final deliverables included:

  • A clickable prototype of all tabs

  • Construction of the search feature

  • Profile Page

  • Data Administrator setup

As I mentioned previously, I love self-sovereign identity projects, looking forward to more work and success for healthKERI soon! 🩷