Adam Sage

Blood Pressure Monitoring App

These screenshots are examples of how the Withings blood pressure monitoring app presents information to patients. Here, there are essentially 4 important pieces of information (5 if you include pulse in the image 2nd from the left): 1) diastolic BP (continuous), 2) systolic BP (continuous) and 3) hypertension severity (ordinal or possibly interval if they are deemed to be clinically meaningful levels of severity), and 4) time (interval). The color-coded severity seems to be a good use of color, however this can become confusing when, for instance, systolic BP is normal or mild (yellow/orange), and diastolic is optimal (green). This sends a mixed message they may be hard to comprehend for patients. The table where the numbers are presented in the 2nd from the left image are straight forward, but it is limited to one measure at a time, and doesn't allow for comparisons over time. The same criticisms about conflicting information applies here. The graphs to the left appear to be interactive. However, in the absence of labels, the numbers are difficult to interpret as they need to be estimated from the vertical axis, and estimates of BP are not what's needed for appropriate monitoring. Labels appear to be arbitrary - only labeling some values. Labeling all would be difficult, but if this is interactive, there should be a purpose to which are chosen by default for labeling (e.g., your best and worst BP readings). Overall, I like the trend lines and I think they are appropriate for these data types, however I do think plotting both can creating conflicting/confusing information, and there may be an optimized way of delivering similarly meaningful information (e.g., a single value of Mean Arterial Pressure). The backdrop also has a gradient blue, which I find somewhat distracting - I would prefer a solid lighter color. Lastly, I think in this instance, the table presentation of a point in time along with the map is mostly redundant as the only added information is pulse.

As you can see, there is room for improvement!