Design challenge
From activity log to “how am I doing?”
At-a-glance progress for stroke rehabilitation.
The short version
Problem: The patient home screen was a scroll-heavy history of activity that showed data without meaning.
What I did: Rebuilt it around progress, a single recommended therapy and condensed history.
What I would measure: How quickly a patient can say how they are doing, whether the next therapy is obvious without scrolling, and whether the effort level is read correctly.
The problem
Bioliberty’s device pairs a soft robotic glove with a tablet control system used by patients and clinicians in stroke rehabilitation. The existing home screen answered none of the questions that mattered: how is the patient doing, what should they do next, and are they working at the right level of effort? In rehab, people have limited time and energy to decode a screen.
The reframe
The problem was not missing data. It was missing clarity. So I flipped the hierarchy:
Insight first: sessions, repetitions and effort at the top, visible without scrolling.
Action next: one recommended therapy, so there is no guesswork.
History last: recent activity stays, but condensed and secondary.
Accessibility, with real constraints
Larger touch targets, more space between controls, less scrolling and no precision gestures. Contrast follows WCAG principles. In a medical setting, less ambiguity means less risk. Green means within target and amber means caution. One thing I would tighten: colour should not be the only signal, so every state needs an icon and a label too.
Effort, explained
Effort is shown as RPE (rate of perceived exertion): how hard the patient feels they are working, on a simple scale.
What it looks like
Three image frames: the reframed home screen; the RPE effort display; the accessibility details.
Reflection
The biggest shift was asking “what decisions does this screen support?” instead of “how do we display activity?” Next I would run clinician walkthroughs, patient comprehension tests, one-handed usability checks and RPE accuracy tests, then begin a cross-platform design system.
