I joined Prenetics as the Product lead to design, develop, and launch a new product offering called: Circle SnapShot. Circle SnapShot offers a variety of self-administered test kits across key areas of health, including food sensitivity, men's and women’s hormones, general health and more. These kits are designed to help users uncover their current health status from the comfort of their homes.
As the product owner for Circle SnapShot, I am accountable for the success of the product launch in six months. My role is not only limited to defining the product vision, strategy and roadmap but also building and leading a team of product associates and an engineering scrum team to design and develop the customer onboarding experience and the test report. I also collaborated with a UI/UX designer and a visual designer to create the product packaging, instructions, user journeys, in-App onboarding and test report flows.
I reported directly to the Group CEO and also worked alongside our Chief Medical Officer, who provided guidance on the selection of medical devices, clinical validation, and the research and development in the lab operations. I also collaborated closely with the customer support team to steer the usability testing efforts.
The first test kit was launched in Hong Kong on 19th April 2022 and is available for online purchases.
Given the undertaking as a mini-CEO of the product, I had to approach the big challenge of: “How to design the Circle SnapShot Product” for launch. Rather than jumping directly into the design phase of the physical product and its service offerings, I had to take a step back and understand the bigger picture to allow me to design a great minimal viable product (MVP) for the launch. For example, to arrive at a solution of how the test report should look, it was required for me to understand what customers found value in the report itself, which led me to understand the motivation behind purchasing a health test kit in the first place. Also, to design a great customer experience, I needed to understand the user journey, and the blood collection process, and address the pain points throughout the journey. Finally, knowing that there are many blood tests available in the market, I had to decide which test to launch first and the sequence of launches that would reap the biggest business benefits. To improve the process of analysis and problem-solving, I broke down the problem into smaller goals and workstreams.
The quickest way to obtain a key insight is to research competitors that are already in the space having similar business models and to explore their offerings. Apart from purchasing several competitor test kits as references, our team also read through customers’ reviews on Trustpilot, forums, and on the App stores. From then, we mapped out the user journeys of our competitors’ products for the selected persona, including pain points and users’ emotions at every stage of the journey to look for opportunities for improvements and developments.
During the reviews and research we conducted in the US and EU, we realised that customers had the most feedback regarding the use of the device, accuracy of results, and the time taken in getting the lab report in that order. In order to understand the health test kits that would appeal to the ASEAN markets, we also conducted user interviews and qualitative surveys with existing and potential customers in Asia to better understand their perceptions and sentiments toward blood tests, including the need and interests in different health or wellness tests in general.
Core Product: The core product needs to provide customers with an easy way to collect blood by themselves, receive a lab report, and to take action with the results provided.
Based on research and interviews, the features that are critical for a direct-to-consumer at-home blood test kit product include :
(i) the device to collect blood
(ii) the report for results
(iii) insights to take action
(iv) tools to help customers to maintain health.
The Pain Reliever: The test kit should be cheaper than an in-clinic purchase, and reduce the time needed to obtain the results. The only thing we need to take note of is eradicating common mistakes customers could make when they self-administer the blood test. It is assumed that the blood collection test results must be as accurate as the blood collection performed by a nurse at a clinic or a hospital.
The Gain Creator: Rather than providing a simple lab report that anyone could receive from a lab or a clinic, customers expect results that can empower them to take action to improve their health. Insights provided should be as personalised as results that could be received at a clinic (or even better ). The experience of the entire testing should be easier than going to a doctor’s clinic.
An ideal customer’s journey is projected in the image below. .
To proceed with the design phase, defining the products’ vision and strategy that aligns with our business goals is required to set the tone of the design, the product and customer experience.
Synthesising all the market research and consolidating feedback from the C suite members, I understood that the launch of Circle SnapShot is significant.
The launch of Snapshot is a showcase and proof that Prenetics is not just a COVID19 testing company. Snapshot is a long-term revenue driver - especially post COVID-19, which will allow our NASDAQ listing to be more attractive. Circle SnapShot is a GREAT product that would evolve beyond the Circle DNA and the COVID-19 testing model, lowering the cost per acquisition and generating sustainable revenue as a business.
The high-level strategy is summarised as follows and is signed off by the Group CEO as we began the design phase.
Together with the Chief Science Officer, we researched and procured several devices to conduct internal usability testing and clinical validation.
We recruited an internal staff to collect blood using 5 shortlisted devices to compare performance and to access the usability of the devices. We have conducted usability testing with more than 200 staff using the recommended manufacturer’s instructions and moderated the entire blood collection process to understand the time taken to collect blood, the error type that occurred during the process, friction points, and behavioural observations. As a result of the tests, we were able to summarise the user preferences and lab requirements of the tested devices.
During the study, we also sent selected blood samples cross-border to analyse the temperature changes throughout the conveyed distance and the time taken to ship samples during COVID-19 to determine the feasibility of launching the test kits in multiple countries all at once.
After the study, we sent out a post-blood draw survey to ask users what influenced them to participate in the internal study, whether the results were helpful, what questions they had in mind when they read the report and additional features that they would like to see in the product offering.
This study spans 10 weeks of blood collection sessions every Monday and Tuesday, with clinical validation being conducted throughout the week. The learnings from this study have given us a significant amount of insights into addressing the following questions:
1. Collecting liquid blood using a collection tube is the only feasible option.
2. Painless devices like TAP-II and TASSO are preferable to using lancets for finger-prick.
3. Blood collecting performance can be controlled by using multiple lancets. There are however minimum blood volume requirements required for each test.
4. Users prefer paper instructions for finger-prick, with step-by-step video instructions for a painless collection device during the blood collection process
5. Users prefer more context to explain lab results
*Unfortunately, the deal with the TAP-II supplier was unsuccessful. TASSO’s team has also withdrawn from the partnership. We currently do not have available options other than launching our test kits with lancets and blood tubes as the blood collection device. However, the key learnings we have gathered in our usability studies have provided us with a lot of insights to make sound business decisions and create the optimal experience for our users.
Consolidating all the learnings we obtained in our usability study, we began designing mock-ups and rapid prototyping for further usability testing to refine the design of the onboarding journey, and product marketing collaterals, in-App test kit activation flows.
A lab report is usually provided from the clinic. But it does not contain descriptive information regarding the result. Therefore, in addition to allowing PDF reports to download, we created a digital report with more engaging features for the users, with an adequate explanation on the results’ contents, including the recommendations provided and reviewed by our in-house physician and scientists. We have also added some science snippets to explain everything about the tests.
Throughout the design process, there are many considerations involved that require further deep-dives and analysis, e.g., how do we upsell our existing DNA test customers to get our blood test, whether we want to offer teleconsultation at launch etc.
I documented all of these open questions where I conducted research, surveys, and analysis to further shape the outcome of the product.
We successfully launched our Circle App globally on the 19th of April. In the HK & UK markets, the new app pushes a new at-home test kit and related content for product discovery In other markets, the CircleDNA App upgrade has a new refreshed look and feel with the added Science guides related to DNA testing and results.
Energised by bold ideas and lateral thinking, I’m up for solving big problems and transforming the world. Count me in for innovating products, processes, and customer experiences.
