BrightInsight
BioPharma | MedTech | Clinical Trials | Connected Diagnostics | Remote Patient Monitoring | Patient Apps
- People leader
- Patient and HCP advocate
- UX and UI design best practices
- Design libraries
- Component design
- Cross-functional collaboration
- Presenting to customers
- Designing RFPs + POCs
- Concept generation
- Leading qualitative research
In 2019 the BrightInsight team decided it was time to hire their first in-house designer. At this point in my career, I knew I wanted to focus on the healthcare space and this was my chance.
My work here started at being an individual contributor and grown to leading my own in house team and hiring research and design contractors whenever needed. As a part of the technology leadership team, I get to help define our direction and problem solve on so many levels.
I believe that to truly design a great product, one needs to understand every core user problem. While some common design principles apply to healthcare in general, each disease is different!
In respecting the privacy of the company, I can’t publicly post much of the work that I did at BrightInsight. However, here is a list of the type of projects I have designed and led. If you are interested in learning more, then email me. enso9llc (at) gmail.com
- Clinical trial portal
- Algorithm-based responsive design for a class C SAMD
- Remote patient monitoring mobile applications
- Physician facing portals
- In Vitro Diagnostics software
- Cancer predictor (HCP facing)
- Medication comparison tool (HCP facing)
- … and more
(Designed and led 7-10 projects at any given time.)
Connected Diagnostics Platform Preview
Disease Management Solution Preview
Problem Solving
Problem-solving is always the most fun part of my job.
I extend my love of problem solving beyond the screens and interactions I design. Only 2 weeks into my job, I noticed a few operational gaps within teams and approached my manager on how Issue Trees could potentially help us resolve a few of these issues. He asked me if I’d be willing to conduct a workshop during our company event. (Of course, I did! ) I let out an enthusiastic “absolutely!”
So here I was, prepped and ready 2 months into my job, conducting a four-hour workshop on problem-solving for the entire company. I designed and led the workshop myself but I needed help and I reached out to colleagues across different functions and asked if they’d help during the workshop.
Leadership
I have been lucky to be able to work with some of the very best! One can easily get lost in the daily grind of work and deadlines. I listen to each person on my team to understand where they want to grow and give them opportunities to do so.
- Time Management
- Conflict Resolution
- Reliability
- Mentorship
- Delegation
- Open Communication
- Created an onboarding for new designers.
- A regular summary of the work that the design team has done.
- Migration from Sketch to Figma to cut down costs and to increase the transparency of our design process.
- Bi-weekly learning sessions – either someone presents a topic they recently learned about or we view a video I have lined up. These videos range from design improvements, tool utilization, career growth to mental health.
- Weekly fun Friday sharing – 5-7 minutes of videos shared on our favorite non-work related topic. Each person on the team shares in rotation.
- Weekly design challenge, where we pick one screen a week and set a timer for 15 minutes and each person edits it in their own way/style. This has given us so many new ideas, because for those 15 minutes we design free of any limitations.
- Daily check-ins to make sure there are no roadblocks and to answer any questions and share updates.
Research
It is critical to understand the problem we are trying to solve for, early on!
Research ALWAYS comes first. This can take many shapes and forms:
- Small group industry expert interviews
- Desk research
- Large group formal industry expert interviews
- What’s out there? aka competitive analysis
- …
Synthesis of this research can also look very different:
- Pages and pages of notes converted to needs and features.
- Synthesized neatly into a final readout with user archetypes and concepts.
- User journey maps.
- etc.
Further breakdown into different buckets:
- Must-haves
- Should haves
- Nice to haves
- Will not haves
- Crazy, bold, and aspirational ideas
Revisiting existing flows to make sure they are optimal – this habit helped me reduce the number of clicks during registration by 50%.
I research and design projects, always working with a lego block type mentality which means elements and workflows in the design needed to be reusable.
Design
Design: Needless to say design needs to have some core qualities beyond the basics-
- As few clicks to complete tasks as possible.
- Simple and uncluttered (the amount of information needed on healthcare portals can quickly become overwhelming.)
- Accessible colors and font sizes.
Design System
Consistency and quick turnarounds need a robust design system. Since BrightInsight didn’t have any created, I started building one and now that we are in Figma, my team has brought the design system to a whole new level with multiple variants for each component.
Mental Health
Mental health has become even more important since the pandemic with all of us juggling multiple roles at the same time in the same space. For this, I lead the “mindfulness in minutes” initiative where we post an activity every week which should take anyone 5-7 minutes to complete but will hopefully help them decompress in that little time. I initially started this within the design team but more people requested to be a part of it.
See our LinkedIn post about it.
A few examples of the activities (each done by setting a 5-7 minute timer):
- Stand up and a little away from your desk and breathe!
- Write a daily personal retro.
- Pick a song and dance.
- Write down everything you are thankful for.
- Stretch after your longest meeting of the day.
- Smile before you begin every meeting! …
Testimonials
I remain grateful for the value Rutu brought to BrightInsight. From leading a workshop on tree frameworks (within 2 months of joining), to starting the design system and product design processes from the ground up, to her role as business partner to our technology, business development and professional services teams, Rutu capitalized on every opportunity to make a positive contribution to the business we are building.
Rutu remains a member of the BrightInsight family and a person that I could not more highly recommend. Simply put, she made everything better.
..Read more (opens LinkedIn profile in a new tab, scroll to end of page to view testimonials)
I’ve had the pleasure of working with Rutu and her team for over two years. Rutu is a true professional in her discipline. Here are a few examples. She leveraged frameworks and implements best practices in our designs (web and mobile interfaces for patients and providers). In doing so, she brought design awareness and consistency to our solutions (software as a medical device in a variety of use cases).
She was effective in leading focus groups to reach actionable conclusions, to ensure we were user focused and solved for the most important unmet needs. She worked with cross functional teams to contribute to sales, marketing and delivery. She proved a great asset to corporate culture when she led all of us in the company in mindfulness exercises during the pandemic.
She is a terrific mentor to her team ensuring staff growth and career development.
All in all, I highly recommend Rutu, both personally and professionally.
In my experience, the focus on regulatory compliance can often impact the user experience of a digital health product, and ultimately, limit end user adoption and engagement.
In this context, Rutu is a rare talent who won’t settle for a ‘good enough’ user experience- she challenges us all to do better. Her ability to place herself in the shoes of the end user and deliver software they love is truly impressive. I’ve seen first hand the impact she has had on the adoption of our products through great design.
It’s been a pleasure working with her.