Overview
I was given the proposal to create a tool to assist pharmaceutical representatives and customer facing
colleagues with their daily schedules and meetings with Healthcare Professionals (HCPs). Pfizer
representatives are always on the go from meeting to meeting informing HCPs of their company's products and
what they do. Because representatives spend a majority of their time in between meetings and sitting in
office waiting rooms, they need a portable assistant to help them plan their day.
How might we keep Pharmaceutical Representatives on schedule and at the top of their game?
Scope and Constraints
Representatives' days are hectic and they constantly find themselves in varying situations, so the tool needs
to be as adaptable as the representatives themselves. The current tool they use has information buried
within different sections of a one-stop-shop application on an iPad, so it takes upwards of 5 minutes for
all the data to load for each request. Pharma reps are meant to be experts on the brands they represent, and
need to know the conditions their products treat, so taking 5 minutes of waiting just to begin researching
information to answer a question is a source of frustration.
Process
I co-hosted a workshop to ideate on potential concepts based on the more concrete requirements I had
received. We collectively worked on user flows of pre-meeting, mid-meeting, and post-meeting tasks, of
which I drew pencil sketches of some screen ideas. In the middle of sketching, I had an “aha!” moment.
I remembered my mother’s PalmPilot growing up, which had almost all the same product requirements:
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A calendar
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A daily planner
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An address book
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A GPS (which later palm devices included)
The only additional requirement we had to focus on was to center it around answering HCP-related
questions as all projects require a level of complexity to tailor it to its unique problem solving.
Migration Process
Due to representatives already using an existing tool, the workshop members worked together to create the
beginnings of a plan to slowly migrate more reps with each passing year.
User Flow
Each daily routine a representative has can be broken down into three steps:
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Pre-Meeting
Everything from taking a look at their schedule, reading an analysis of prescribers, to preparing
for a meeting.
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Meeting
The sit-down discussion with the Healthcare Professional.
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Post-Meeting
Reps need to record the discussion and take action (Order samples, write followup email, etc.)
Branding
Scout follows Pfizer’s branding through utilizing Meraki Design System with a heavier focus on legibility as
reps would need to go through multiple paragraphs of research. For this reason, all body copy uses a larger
leading size. The standard Meraki leading size is 120%, whereas the Scout body copy leading size is 150%.
Certain screens are in dark mode for discretion, such as the Meeting Mode screen so if the representative
needs to look up some information in front of the HCP, they aren’t suddenly disoriented with a bright
screen. Since iOS is placing a heavier requirement on Liquid Glass, I also introduced some Liquid Glass
components, such as the Navigation.
Wireframing & Prototyping
The idea behind Scout is part traditional app components and part chat. I designed the homepage to have
everything a rep needs to see at a glance, like how their Call Plan is going, or any changes may have
happened since they last opened the app. Beneath the stats, Scout will suggest topics based on time of day,
brands the rep is managing.
The menu contains user-pinned topics to start a new pre-populated chat, an option to create a new pinned
topic, view chat history from the last 14 days, and a clear chat history button.
I created “Meeting Mode” for a Rep to get a quick glance at the Healthcare Professional's details pertaining
to the brands they may ask about, as well as sample orders they may ask about. I also included an elapsed
time for the Representative to discretely see because both Reps and HCPs have very rigid schedules they need
to adhere to.
For the post-meeting, Representatives need to document how the meeting went, if there are any follow-ups such
as ordering samples or making sure deliveries are on time, as well as any other notes needed about the
relationship. This mockup is for the Reps option to fill the form out on their own and upload it to Scout
manually through either their files app, or take a photo of the printed and filled out form and upload it
that way. There is another option for users to record the form together with the app asking the questions
from the form and user entering each input in a Q&A format.
This HCP Profile screen is similar to the view in Meeting Mode except it contains more details about the
HCP's office location, as well as a button to open the map and set up directions to the office.
Outcomes and Lessons
Because of the existing app, our suggestion of creating a new separate app was met with pushback because it
required a new set of security features. Due to Pfizer reprioritizing various initiatives, this project was
never fully realized, so no KPIs could be accurately measured out in the field.
My favorite part of Scout was how different the experience is as compared to apps I have used and/or worked
on. The hybridization between traditional app components like the navigation, tables, and menu and the chat
integration made Scout such a unique challenge and I think it's an interesting direction to which the
industry could move.
