Interaction - Bachelor
The Thyroid Storm is an interactive article that helps people with thyroid disease make sense of their condition and gives them an easy way to share it with those close to them, so they don’t have to explain it themselves.
Medical information can be overwhelming and hard to read, and thyroid disease adds another layer: its symptoms are largely invisible and easy to misunderstand.
As someone living with thyroid disease, I have seen first-hand how confusing the available information can be, and how much others struggle to understand it. Patients are left to piece together their condition on their own, then explain it to family and friends who can’t see what they are experiencing.
How might we design a solution that helps people with thyroid disease better understand their condition and communicate their experience to the people around them.
After I defined the problem statement, I built user personas, user scenarios and researched what was already out there to help form my ideas. I then brainstormed solutions, presenting 2 for feedback.
I decided to work on two of the solutions and integrate them into one concept: storytelling via an online article, with interactive elements embedded throughout.
I created multiple low-fidelity prototypes of elements I planned to incorporate into the final concept, along with storyboards and a draft of the article that brings it all together.
The final high-fidelity prototype is an online news feature article told across multiple chapters, with a link out to an expanded story.
What sets ‘The Thyroid Storm’ apart from a standard article is its visual storytelling. Illustrations run throughout to bring the narrative to life, and animated GIFs at key moments add interest and emotional weight.
Interactive screens offer medical information at varying levels of detail, supporting and expanding on what the protagonist is going through.
With further development, I believe this article could become a valuable resource for people living with thyroid disease, as well as their friends and family. It bridges the gap between complex medical writing and engaging personal storytelling.
Lisa is an experienced Instructional Designer who is endlessly curious and always building her skill set. Alongside her work designing learning experiences, she is studying Interaction and Graphic Design, with a particular interest in how visuals and interactivity can reduce cognitive load and make learning clearer, more engaging, more memorable and more accessible.
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