One conversation with someone who uses a home health documentation system every working day. Not a demo, not a review of what we built — she should not see the product until this is over.
Everything typed here stays on this phone until you press a button at the bottom. When you are done, Email it or Text it — both send the answers straight to Tarrell, and both put a full copy on your clipboard first in case the message comes through short.
No names. Describe the work, not the people. Say “a client” or “the office” — never a real client, patient or coworker’s name, address or diagnosis. Nothing here should be able to identify anyone.
Start here. It is the only question that gets an unrehearsed answer, because she is remembering rather than evaluating.
Walk me through yesterday. From the first time you touched the system to the last — what did you open first?
How many things did you have open at once? Name them all — apps, tabs, paper, phone.
What did you do outside the system? Notes app, texts, a sheet of paper, a spreadsheet you keep yourself?
Not 'what is slow' — what is slow *that should not be*. She already knows the difference.
What is the one task that takes way longer than it should?
Last time you did it — how long, actually? Minutes.
While it is taking that long, what are you actually waiting on — the system, a person, or a signature?
This is the mission. Every duplicate entry is money and morale, and it is the thing we said we would kill.
What do you type more than once? Where does the second one go?
Is there anything you copy from one screen and paste into another?
What does not carry over that should? What do you re-type because the system forgot it?
Does anything have to be entered in a second system entirely — a payer portal, an EVV app, a state site?
The gold section. Every workaround is a design failure with a name on it. Ask gently — people are a little embarrassed by these.
What do you do that the system was never designed for?
Do you keep a personal document, spreadsheet or notebook because the system cannot hold it?
Is there anything you do to make it work that you would not show a trainer?
What have you taught a new person that is not in any training material?
Failure modes are where trust is won or lost. Ask for the last time, not the general case.
Last time it would not let you do something you needed to do — what was it?
What happens when there is no signal at a client's home?
Has it ever lost work you had already done? What did you do about it?
When it is down or broken, who do you call — and what actually happens?
This is the burden the whole product exists to remove. Be precise here.
Do you ever finish charting after your shift ends? How often, and roughly how long?
Where are you when you do it? Car, kitchen table, couch?
What makes a note take long — writing it, finding the right field, or waiting for it to load?
What do you have to write that feels pointless? What is there only because someone might audit it?
She sees failures happening to other people that she has stopped noticing in herself.
What do new people get wrong for their whole first month?
What does the office call you about that they should be able to just look up?
Who is the person everyone asks when the system will not do what they need?
Almost nobody designs for this and it decides whether the mobile side works at all.
Is it her own phone or the agency's? Who pays for the data?
How old is the phone, and how big is the screen? Does the battery survive a full shift?
Is it used one-handed? With gloves? In the dark? In a car?
Is she ever holding the phone while she is physically supporting someone?
Ask this at the end and only at the end. Asked early it anchors everything after it.
If you could delete one screen forever, which one?
If it could do one thing tomorrow morning that it cannot do today — what?
What does a good day look like? What has to have happened by the time you go home?