MALACHECK

Story

This project began during COVID when our team asked a simple question: which diseases had the world stopped paying attention to?

My role was leading the research, defining the design principles, building the human-centered design framework, and directing the overall vision of the project.

Rather than jumping into solutions, I framed the project around three questions: Could design reduce diagnostic delay? Where in the malaria journey is the greatest leverage point? And ultimately, is this a product problem or a systems problem?

Four statistics stood out: over 600K deaths annually , 280 M cases per year, symptoms take10-15 days appear, the and the current rapid diagnostic test involves a 12 step complex process.

The data suggested that even small improvements could have global impact, that time is a critical variable, and that complexity might be one of the biggest barriers. This was a key turning point. Across the research, five themes emerged. 1) Symptoms are often dismissed 2) access to healthcare determines diagnosis 3) expertise is a major barrier 4) caregivers are often the true decision-makers 5) system bottlenecks delay treatment. These insights directly informed the design principles moving forward.

Several key intervention supported this goal: Multi-user ergonomic design, High-leverage, low-scope intervention, Speed and confidence as design goals, Guidance embedded in the device, Single unified form factor.

The final outcome reframed malaria testing as a design challenge rather than a behavioral challenge. Instead of asking users to adapt to complexity, the design absorbs that complexity into the product itself.