Building a platform for a VR focused digital health company
You are now reading a blog post that is a result of a product audit delivered to one of our clients, Softcare Studios. Product audit is a core service of bene : studio. It serves as a foundation to support the product planning, design, and development services for a client.
As a digital product consultancy, bene : studio has always been interested in examining systems and applications and finding ways to improve them.
The team at bene : studio is not only curious about improving systems and applications but loves sharing knowledge and therefore has made the findings of some of the product audits public to support the HealthTech community as the studio becomes more and more involved within this industry.
Introduction to the client
Softcare Studios is based in Rome, Italy and was founded in 2017 by Valentino Megale.
Their first project was TOMMI, a VR experience designed to reduce anxiety and pain in pediatric patients, involving both patients (7-14 years old and usually hospitalized) and their caregivers through inclusive gamified mechanics, oriented to improve patients adherence to therapy and facilitate the work routine of the medical staff. TOMMI is provided to children undergoing stressful medical treatments in oncology, dentistry, orthopedics, pre-diagnostics, and ADHD. Its game mechanics are developed to both engage and distract children from unpleasant emotions of therapy as well as test and train their cognitive, sensory, and motor performances.
They have B2B business model, with patients associations, hospitals, and medical specialists as their customers. They sell the VR bundles and annual subscriptions.
This post focuses on Softcare Studio’s platform, where we look at their current website and lay the foundation of a business-based web page and its backend logic.
Their current platform
Their current platform focuses on delivering core branding information only in text, video and providing a contact form for inquiries.
How can we improve the platform taking into consideration all of Softcare Studios’ business goals with an aim to help and boost sales, promotion and education?
Key business feature requirements laid out by the client:
- Show packages and different services available for clients to choose from
- Payment and filtering features
- Possibility to create a profile for the client to manage their service packages
- Informative content about VR, services, and solutions, and the process of purchasing and implementing solutions
- Existing catalog of services to choose from with filtering options
- Survey to fill out for personalized sales offers
Step 1: improvements on the current platform
These improvements are low hanging fruit, they can be implemented quickly to boost the value of their current platform.
- Make more information on the products available
- List available solutions and packages clients can choose from
- UI/UX tweaks for easier client conversion
- Uploading educational materials on services and their benefits
- Introducing ordering and payment functionalities
- Customer account creation and package management
Step 2: a new platform with new features
The future platform would serve all business needs of Softcare Studios making their website the main distribution channel. With all available information easily accessible with a clear and smooth design. Educating customers on solutions and services of Softcare Studios.
Landing/home page
The content should include the main sales and business factors that help create trust in new potential customers, with short descriptions of the products and services.
Keep a list of partners and customers with testimonials if possible as proof of quality. Add contact information to the bottom.
Services page
Broader description of the services and the process of implementing them. Highlight the three main categories of services:
– Pediatrics
– Adults
– Elderly
Seperate pages should be built for each, explaining in detail the differences and benefits of the services. Showing a list of related VR programs with descriptions and usage.
Blog
We recommend this feature to have a place to post content, stories about your services, clients, or any other artices that supports your goals. A blog is a great way to tell more about the product as well as to improve your SEO performance.
Service packages page
List of different ‘general’ packages that you can offer
Call to action: ‘Find the perfect match for you’
Survey to fill out to receive a personalised package:
- Predefined questions that would help you define the exact needs
- Easy to fill out (Yes/no or multiple choice only with limited free text)
Contact page
Have a simple contact page with all possibilities to reach the company and a map to visually show the location.
Further pages and functionalities
- Sign up option for already existing customers:
Using a separate platform to manage profile, subscriptions and upgrade or downgrade services.
- Online payment and ordering functionality
- FAQ page
- Administration for package handling
- Personal profile for administration and package management (for future development)
- Download page for available content and subscription option (for a newsletter and/or other content).
Backend Logic
Looking at the scope of the improvements coming from the audit, we recommend a system that is based on a modular and performant backend that can be easily extended and scaled later.
Developed core features:
- Admin functionalities (incl. user management)
- Content management (upload/delete/update)
- Generic data handling.
- Execute business intelligence tasks like package assignments
- Blog engine
- Possibility for online ordering handling and payment
- Handle notifications (e.g. on a new online order)
Reporting functionalities:
- Serve data needs of generic reporting
- Gather usage statistics and present it for visualization and analysis
Architecture
An AWS based architecture was created to handle the requirements. Elements of the architecture:
- CloudFront: Cache system that improves access speed for downloading bulky content.
- EC2: the application server that runs the web application serving the needs of visitors, hospitals, and Softcare users.
- RDS: Amazon’s managed Relational Database Management System.
- S3: Simple Storage System to store the media content.
Access
The new platform would provide login functionalities to various users, clients and customers. Let’s look at what we suggest for each user group.
Hospital access
In this step we create the basic functionality from a hospital client point of view. After this step
- The hospital client can log in
- They can see the available content for VR devices.
- Each content has a details section and can be downloaded if the client plan allows it.
- Not allowed content is shown but greyed out. Instead of a download button, there is a call-to-action button (contact us if you are interested in this content)
- Detailed recommendation service is available. Based on specific input parameters (end-user age, gender, therapy, etc…) it lists the recommended content
Admin access
Here we create the basic functionality for Softcare admins. After this step, admins
- Can manage (upload, delete, edit properties) content
- Can set up packages from available content
- Can manage subscription of hospitals
Public access
In this step we update the public view of the Softcare service. After this step,
- Optimized landing page is available
- Customer support is available including FAQs and videos
Development plan
Agile development is recommended focusing on the following principles: fast release, creating additional value at each step and using feedback from previous steps.
Further ideas for a long term roadmap.
- Feedback system (was the recommendation successful)?
- Recommendation improvement (based on feedbacks, possibly using AI)
- Unpersonalized end-user table building (to include the recommendation system input, selection, other parameters like content usage time, and feedback)
- Personal end-user table (for possible business-model update)
About Product Audits
bene : studio helps clients develop their product strategy starting with a product audit. With the experience of more than 100 projects bene : studio lists the values of a product and key areas to improve within the application, software, UX, design or user flow.
The audit is followed by planning where the client receives a detailed document on how the improvements can be implemented as a part of the digital product strategy.
If your startup or enterprise is interested in product audit or product planning book a free consultation with us.
