In the past few months you may have noticed we have been asking our users to fill out surveys in the Curve Hero welcome message. We hope we’re not being too much of an annoyance—our apologies if that’s the case and our sincere thanks if you’ve taken time to help us out. The surveys represent the Curve Dental design team’s effort to solicit valuable feedback to improve our decision making. This is all part of our dental experience activities.
We also use a number of other strategies to apply direct customer input into design decisions. Some of the other methods we employ including: Interviews; observation; and task analysis.
Over the years, you may have yourself been involved in some of these activities.
Why do we ask for all this help?
Determining and prioritizing customer needs is a key function of user experience (UX) design. At Curve Dental, our team of ‘UXers’ continuously strive to create meaningful product experiences for our customers based on the usability, ease-of-use and even (dare we say) the pleasure of using our product. Yes: we said “pleasure”. We believe if you must work with software all day long it should be fun and enjoyable.
Your impressions and perceptions of Curve Hero are our primary concerns. We aim to create systems that meet a number of factors (we call these usability heuristics), including user control, consistency, flexibility and the aesthetics of the product.
All of this work requires a clear view and understanding of our customers’ needs. This is where you, our users come in.
What information are we trying to gather?
As user experience designers, the team at Curve Dental always strives to meet your needs in terms of the day-to-day tasks you need to perform. This ranges from clinical tools, to patient management, to financial activities, to practice administration and more. The data we collect is usually specific to a narrowly defined design problem, but we do gather all of your responses and suggestions.
In many cases it is through engagement with our customers that truly unique design solutions are found.
For instance, when we first started conceptual work on online dental patient forms, we wanted to make sure that the data fields captured information that was relevant and applicable for the majority of practices. We found that we were never going to be able to satisfy everyone. Each practice has unique needs, and operates in their own way.
Through your valuable feedback we were able to come up with our recently released Custom Fields feature. This feature was shaped by your input during interviews, in survey responses we collected, and though our beta testing phase of the project. In the end, we are confident that custom fields will be a foundation for practices for years to come.
Why do we ask what you do at the dental practice?
Sometimes the improvements and new features we are working on affect all Curve Hero customers, while others may be specific to hygienists or front office staff. With every one of these changes, we implement thorough analysis of what this might mean from perspective of the user, as well as other factors.
As much as we try to use tools that put ourselves in your shoes though, we are not clinicians or front-line team members at your practice. To get this feedback, we need your help. For this reason, we look to engage with specific members of your teams, or will ask you to fill in your role when we conduct a survey.
Your effort; everyone’s reward
In every one of our recent releases, from our new imaging tools, to our update to billing statements, to hours of access controls, and more, we have engaged with our customers to help us create the best possible design solution.
Through it all, your involvement with our design team represents your advocacy not only for your own experience with the product, but also for the broader user base. Your ideas, suggestions and feedback can have a positive impact for many other customers. You help make Curve Hero better for everyone. Thank you!
The next time we ask for your help in filling out a survey, to be involved with an interview, or to be a beta site for a new feature, know the impact you are having, not only for your own practice, but for the thousands of others using Curve Hero every day.
