A digital library to keep Oncologists up-to-date on essential research and treatment guidelines.
Client: American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)
Role: UX Designer
Company: Thoughtworks
Overview
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) partnered with Thoughtworks to improve how oncology professionals access and engage with essential research, treatment guidelines, and meeting content. As the UX Designer on the project, I helped shape the ASCO Content Experience (ACE), a specialized digital library designed to help oncologists quickly find high quality, up-to-date information that supports better clinical decisions and patient care.
The Problem:
Oncology professionals struggled to efficiently locate current treatment guidelines and research within ASCO’s extensive content due to fragmented search and navigation tools. This limited timely access to critical information, impacting workflow efficiency and potentially affecting patient outcomes.
Oncology professionals struggled to efficiently locate current treatment guidelines and research within ASCO’s extensive content due to fragmented search and navigation tools. This limited timely access to critical information, impacting workflow efficiency and potentially affecting patient outcomes.
Research
UX Research Goal and Process
To learn about the various ways that oncologists engage with ASCO and how they use research and guidelines in their work.
Methodologies
1. Mapping User Flow to Guidelines
2. Data analytics and surveys
3. User Interviews
1. Mapping User Flow to Guidelines
2. Data analytics and surveys
3. User Interviews
47% of users access ASCO guidelines via search engines
4 out of 6 interviews were academic oncologists. All interviews were done over zoom
Research Findings
Limited Awareness of Non-Meeting Resources
ASCO is known for its meetings, but users struggle to find content and resources outside the events.
Guidelines Accessibility & Updates
ASCO’s guidelines are well-researched but perceived as slow to update and harder to navigate than competitors, reducing engagement.
Need for Smarter Research Filtering
Oncologists rely on newsletters and social media but want better tools to streamline and save relevant research.
Easy Content Bookmarking
Users need a quick way to mark, save, and revisit relevant content for their practice and research.
Proposed Solution
Concept Testing
Initial concepts were made and tested with 10 users to ensure we were on the right path. They were presented with a ‘homepage’, ‘meetings page’, and ‘content page’ (ex. breast cancer guideline).
Home page
Content page
Feedback Findings
The content library concept was validated and user jobs-to-be-done were identified from the feedback given.
Design
Site Map
Pulling the most important content out from ASCO.org and into the ASCO Content Library.
Explore Page Wireframes
One of the challenges faced was figuring out how users should browse content relevant for them such as most view videos or recently published articles.
A: Browse by Filter
B: Browse overall
Explore and save User Flow
After many iterations option B was deemed less complex considering our timeline and technical limitations. Along side the wireframes I created a user flow that included TBD future actions to define how users would explore and save content.
High Fidelity Screens
Explore Flow
Saving Content Flow
Design System Style Guide
Key Elements
To ensure consistency, we built a design system that served as a comprehensive source for design patterns, accessibility standards, and documentation.
- Accessibility guidelines
- Branding (colors, typography, logos)
- Spacing, breakpoints, and layout grids
- Icon pack
- Component library
- Branding (colors, typography, logos)
- Spacing, breakpoints, and layout grids
- Icon pack
- Component library
Process
I coordinated closely with development, product, and design teams, conducting regular reviews of each style guide component to build a cohesive, reusable library. By aligning ASCO’s branding with Angular standards, we delivered a polished, end-to-end user experience.
