Julius Clinical x HARDE KERN
In collaboration with Diederick van Peperstraten
Julius Clinical manages global clinical drug trails. Participants of those drug trails often quit mid-trail. This greatly impacts the reliability and validity of these trails. Julius Clinical asked Harde Kern in 2022 to come up with a solution.
After an iterative design process of eight weeks filled with extensive research, feedback meetings with our client and interviews with medical experts, we came up with a solution for Julius Clinical called Julius Personal.
Our research concludes the following:
‘Bigger than yourself’
The underlying concept of Julius Personal is called ‘Bigger than yourself’. The concept urges the importance of clinical drug trails to the (potential) participants of these trails. Patients should participate in drug trails to help others, not themselves. Participating in such trails does not guarantee being cured. The goal of clinical drug trails is to check if medicine work, so they can be used safely in the future.
It's important that patients know this and it motivates them to participate instead of participating in their own interest. This way clinical drug trails are bigger than the participating patients.
Julius Personal
Julius Clinical focusses on the results of the clinical drug trails they manage and it communicates like a Contract Research Organisation should: formal and to the point.
Julius Personal, a new department within Julius Clinical, will focus on retaining participants of trails, rather than the results. Julius Personal communicates with more emotion towards the patient. The difference can for example be seen in the soft colours which express friendliness, warmth and optimism.
Julius Personal cannot only be found in the products we designed. It’s about more than a book, bracelet or app. It’s also about small gestures such as providing lunch when a patient comes by for a check-up.
The final products
We expressed Julius Personal through three different but related products. All of them have one main function: showing the process of the specific trail and giving the participant reasons to continue participating.
During the trail, the participants receive stickers, tokens or digital tokens, depending on the product they’ve chosen. Each of these receivals holds a different message telling why it’s important to keep going. These stickers or tokens can be collected and placed in the process-book, on the bracelet or added in the app. All together they show the process and the goals of the clinical drug trail.
The products are based on the conclusions of our research:
The participants are informed and continuously reminded of the goals of clinical drug trails to create intrinsic motivation & loved ones of participants are included in our solution: now they know what’s happening to the participant.
Illustrations of storyboards & bracelet made by Diederick van Peperstraten
