Nerveli
Product Design | Visual Design | Prototype
Crafting an intuitive experience for Nerveli to empower individuals and physicians in managing chronic pain effectively.
Role
Lead Product Designer
Timeline
1.5 years
Team
Thaovy Nguyen
Jade Nguyen
Leon Jacobson (CFO)
UTD Spring ‘22 development Class
Skills
User Research
Visual Design
Product Strategy
Tools
Figma
Photoshop
Procreate
Project Overview
About
Nerveli is a healthcare app aimed at revolutionizing at home pain management. Using AI, it offers customized plans and Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST) to categorize pain types and recommend tailored interventions. The founders of Nerveli sought out a student led design class at the University of Texas at Dallas to help bring the app idea into fruition. After the semester ended, I joined the Nerveli team to further work on the application.
Over the next two years, I collaborated with the startup and a team of designers to create foundational designs for the mobile app, website, and internal dashboards. This case study highlights my process in designing the physician-facing EHR dashboard—aimed at surfacing the most relevant patient insights for efficient, informed clinical care.
Physicians need both a high-level view of patient data and access to detailed historical information to provide effective chronic pain management.
The Problem
The physician dashboard was designed to give doctors an at-a-glance overview of their patients’ chronic pain management—surfacing key trends, medications, and activities in a modular format to support efficient and informed clinical decision-making.
Product Goals
Solutions
We translated Nerveli’s vision for the app into intuitive and visually engaging designs. While Nerveli provided a framework of features and solutions, my role involved refining these concepts into user-friendly interfaces that prioritize ease of use and accessibility. Through design iterations and user feedback, we worked on implementing these features to ensure they meet the needs and preferences of our target audience.
How it Works
Secondary Research
Understanding Electronic Health Record (EHR) Systems
To deepen my understanding of physician dashboards, I conducted secondary research on Electronic Health Record (EHR) usability, drawing insights from industry standards and best practices to inform my design decisions.
Functionality and Information Content
Source: Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. (n.d.). Electronic Health Records. Medicare.gov. https://www.cms.gov/
EHR Usability Guidelines
Key Design Principles
This section presents essential usability principles drawn from best practices in EHR systems. These insights shaped the design decisions for the Nerveli app and dashboard, ensuring an intuitive user experience that supports both patients and healthcare providers in managing chronic pain effectively.
Consistent and Intuitive Interface 🩺
Designed for physicians familiar with EHR interfaces by aligning the design with familiar workflows and real world practices of healthcare providers.
Efficient Interaction 📰
Ensure that users can complete tasks with minimal steps and interactions. Simple workflows enhance efficiency and allow healthcare providers to focus more on patient care.
Concise Presentation 📈
Display information in a clear and organized manner by using appropriate visual aids like charts and graphs. Effective presentation aids in quick data interpretation and informed decision making.
Brand Identity
Mascot
Tasked with creating a friendly animal mascot as the face of the app, ‘Eli’ the elephant came to fruition. Collaboratively, our team arrived at the name 'Eli,' reflecting a collective decision-making process. Through iterative design, I crafted various versions of Eli, ensuring versatility and appeal for seamless integration across the app's interface.
Wireframes
Low Fidelity Wireframes
To explore information hierarchy and clinician workflows, I sketched low-fidelity wireframes grounded in EHR best practices and stakeholder input. These wireframes helped shape early design decisions—such as placing the progress tracker beside symptom charts for quick care plan review, and adding an interactive pain map to improve patient symptom reporting.
Wireframes
High Fidelity Wireframes
Key Design Choices
Surfaced critical patient info at the top of the dashboard
→ Ensured quick-glance access to name, DOB, diagnosis, and key pain metrics to support fast clinical decision-making.
Grouped data visually into digestible modules
→ Pain trends, medication history, recent activities, and physical therapy logs were separated into scannable sections to avoid cognitive overload.
Used familiar UI patterns from standard EHR systems
→ Mimicked elements from Epic and Cerner (e.g., tabular layouts, dropdowns, charts) to lower the learning curve for providers.
Prioritized visual summaries over text-heavy data
→ Implemented charts and icons to represent pain levels, stress, sleep, and physical activity trends for at-a-glance clarity.
Additional Contributions
Supporting Screens
Alongside the EHR dashboard, I also designed key user facing screens for the mobile app that support onboarding, engagement, and patient health tracking.
Final Thoughts
Takeaways
Working closely with a team of designers and developers provided me with a valuable experience in collaborative design. I was actively involved in meetings where we discussed user needs, technical feasibility, and design challenges, which helped me gain a deeper understanding of how to create solutions that balance user experience with development constraints. This hands on collaboration allowed me to adapt my designs based on feedback from both designers and developers, ensuring that my contributions aligned with the app's goals and technical capabilities.
During my time with Nerveli, my role in shaping the tablet dashboard and additional supporting screens was pivotal in establishing the foundational design elements for the app. It’s been interesting to see how the product has evolved since my time there, but I take pride in knowing that my work contributed to the preliminary stages of the startup’s journey, laying the groundwork for the user experience that continues to guide their product today.