Case study · Alpine Health Technologies
LYNx
A patient queue and appointment platform: one product, three surfaces, three kinds of users.
The problem
Clinics and offices that serve the public manage their waiting rooms with paper lists, phone calls and a lot of shouting names. Patients don't know when they'll be seen, staff lose track of who arrived, and every reschedule means another phone call. LYNx set out to manage the whole visit: booking, check-in, the live queue and reminders.
Three kinds of users
Admins
Set up the office, services and schedules, and oversee how the day is going.
Office staff
Call the next person, manage the line and create, change or cancel appointments, all day, under pressure.
Patients and visitors
Book from home, get confirmations and reminders, and see their place in line while they wait.
One product, three surfaces
1. Staff console
The screen staff live in all day. It's built for speed: call the next person, see who's waiting and for what, and create, reschedule or cancel an appointment without leaving the queue view.
2. Self-service booking
A short web form that anyone can complete from their phone: choose the service, pick a day and time, confirm. No account, no app to install.
3. Waiting-room display
A screen in the waiting room that shows the queue moving in real time, so people know where they stand instead of asking the front desk.
Closing the loop: notifications
Every booking triggers an SMS and email confirmation with the day and time, followed by a reminder before the appointment. I designed the content and timing of each message as part of the flow, not as an afterthought, because for most patients the message is the product.
Outcome
I designed the complete process and every screen for the three user groups. LYNx launched with small clinic clients, and I also designed its brand identity.
What I took from it
- Design for the busiest user first. The staff console had to work in seconds, at the front desk, with a line of people waiting.
- A multi-sided product only works if every side works. A great booking form is useless if the queue screen confuses staff.
- Notifications are part of the experience. Clear confirmations and reminders do more for a patient than any screen.