VeriComms wordmark logo

Establishing confidence, efficiency, and reliability for public health communication

Public health communicators needed a tool they could trust with accuracy and speed, so I helped build an AI platform trained only on verified health data instead of the open internet.

white label designB2B2Cpublic healthAI
Product currently in development
VeriComms product screens collage

Role

UX Designer, Agile Servant Leader

Responsibilities

UX/UI Design, AI Design, User Research, CX Strategy, Agile Methodologies

Team

Brinleigh Murphy-Reuter (CEO & Founder)
Pablo M. Flores, PhD (Product Advisor)
Rajeshwari Subramanian (Growth & Operations)
Swayam Pendgaonkar (Technical PM)
Project Management team
Product Strategy team
UX Research team
UX Design team
UX Writing team
Solutions Architecture team

Duration

4 months

Impact

Attaining a SUS score of 75.7 with public health individuals, client satisfaction score of 95%, and 4 product changes that strengthened client market positioning.

OVERVIEW
Background

Science To People came back to us with a new challenge: to scale their operations and build VeriComms, their first white label product for public health communicators.

Previously, we built an AI content creation platform called VeriSci.AI (now called AKARI; see case study here) for our client, Science To People. With secured funding from our previous work, Science To People sought us out to scale their operations and create their first white label product, VeriComms, for the Public Health Communications Collaborative (PHCC).

“Messages that are simple, clear, and accurate can save lives.”

Public Health Communications Collaborative, About Us

The scope was more complex this time around, with a larger stakeholder team, more product ambiguity, and confidentiality constraints. As part of the UX design team, I shaped the vision of this product and was responsible for all design deliverables for handoff to the outsourced dev team for implementation. From cross-functional collaboration with 5 other teams of 20+ members, the client, and indirect stakeholders, we achieved an excellent SUS usability score of 75.7, client satisfaction rating of 95%, and 4 product changes to strengthen client market positioning.

Problem
💉
PROBLEM

Public health communicators face challenges in information overload, accuracy, approval bottlenecks, and tool fragmentation, making it difficult to deliver timely, trustworthy public communications.

Solution

An AI thought partner and creative assistant designed to address the unique needs of public health communicators. Unlike general-purpose AI, VeriComms is built on a science-focused, closed-corpus LLM specifically trained on verified public health data.

DISCOVERY
Stakeholder Interview

Who is PHCC and what are they about?

To kickstart our project, we spoke with our indirect stakeholders at PHCC for better clarity and alignment between our team and their organization. From the interview, we learned that PHCC:

  • Readily shares infographics, social posts, and plain-language guides on emerging health issues to state and local health departments, nonprofit public health communication teams, and allied professionals like epidemiologists and clinicians

We also gathered the following insights after conducting a prioritization activity with them to understand the more pressing challenges and problems they had:

Trust in Public Health:Misinformation spreads faster than vetted health content and public health communicators struggle to validate and remove false or misleading content, especially when it looks credible.
Health Messaging Obscurity:Public health guidance is often presented in incomprehensible terms for general public. Thus, messages frequently fail to reach or resonate with specific communities, leaving critical gaps.
Lack of Efficient Communication:Public health communication is slowed by manual processes and fragmented workflows, which slows down the ability to counter misinformation, giving harmful content a head start.
Client Direction & Business Goals

How should this white-label product look like?

We also discussed with the client about their business goals for this white label product. Based on our conversations, we had to quickly adapt and pivot our focus based on some of the criteria and constraints they shared with us.

In essence, the client requested for us to:

  • Build VeriComms using some base features of AKARI (current version of the previous VeriSci.AI) with specific features tailored for public health communicators
  • Provide insights, UX/UI recommendations, and visioning to inform and drive VeriComms development
AKARI Audit

Breaking it down to build something tailored.

From our previous work of creating VeriSci.AI, the client made substantial updates with the outsourced developer team to build AKARI. We looked closely at the heuristics of AKARI so we can build VeriComms based on its key features. Things we kept in mind for the audit included:

  • Heuristic criteria: onboarding, navigation, function, user flows, interactions, UI elements, content, and error states
  • Feedback prioritization:
    • To consider: feedback that would help enhance the experience of the product
    • Essential: feedback about the product that would lead to major friction points if not accounted for

From our extensive audit of AKARI, we got the following takeaways to inform how VeriComms could look like:

⚠️

Content customization features should be grouped based on their framework, workflows, and functions.

⚠️

Empty states should be optimized to clearly guide users forward with direct actions that improve feature discovery.

⚠️

Avoid cognitive overload by identifying areas with complex interactions that can overwhelm users and hinder task completion.

⚠️

A more organized, neutral color palette would provide better structure, with accent colors highlighting key actions.

User Interviews

Hearing from public health communicators themselves.

After understanding the business side, we first conducted 2 rounds of structured user interviews with 27+ public health professionals to hear their pain points and obstacles, particularly if and how AI tools can assist them with their work tasks and processes. Here's what they felt:

AI is most valuable as a collaborator, but the final say should still come from a human. This gives users better work efficiency and control.
AI often expedites public health work as an essential tool for tight deadlines, allowing them to meet aggressive and impossible timelines.
AI trained on relevant, updated, and bias-checked knowledge gives users confidence when dealing with highly sensitive health topics.

After the 2 rounds, we then conducted an additional round of user interviews with a prioritization activity to rank certain features and challenges for public health professionals. From this, the top priorities in the users' perspective were:

1
Ranked #1 in need:Writing communication materials (i.e. web content, brochures, press releases, social posts) is a crucial, time-consuming, yet AI-friendly task.
2
Ranked #2 in need:Data visuals for public health materials (i.e. infographics, layouts, charts) was described to be hands-on, creative, yet time-intensive.
3
Ranked #3 in need:Fact/compliance checking (i.e. aligning with CDC guidelines & local policies) has an important role, with low control and AI trust levels.
+
Additional need:Translation/transcreation features for commonly needed languages is a lower priority, difficult, but impactful function for public health workers.
View Prioritization Ranking Results
DESIGN DIRECTION
CX Strategy

Looking at everything holistically to build the foundation.

To ensure that we create a practical product for public health workers, we built and refined our customer lifecycle funnel based on user interview insights to envision how we can understand, attract, and personalize customer experiences. We then created a CX flow chart for current public health communicators to tailor touchpoints based on the customer stage they are in.

With these 2 deliverables, we determined that:

FOUNDATION

At the core

Trust and access to accurate information, respectful communication, and timely service delivery should be within the core experience.

ELEVATED

Beyond the core

Digital innovations, multilingual services, and partnerships are enhancements that can elevate the core experience.

Customer Persona, Empathy, & Journey Maps

Keeping the customer in sight and in mind.

We then trace customer end-to-end workflow to inform our target audience and highlight moments of friction and opportunity, ensuring that future decisions remain closely aligned with the realities of our users.

DESIGN & TECHNICAL WORK
Solutions Architecture

Bridging the gap between strategy and implementation.

Synthesizing everything so far, I worked with our solutions architect to create technical architecture and business relationship diagrams that will guide the direction of future VeriComms implementation. These overall blueprints will help ensure that future development stays aligned with business requirements, user needs, and technical capabilities.

Wireframes

Designing an engaging and practical experience.

With our discovery insights and design direction defined, we built revamped certain features from AKARI to better suit the needs of public health communicators.

We adopted some conventions inspired by AI platforms like Claude AI, ChatGPT, and Perplexity for features that provide:

TESTING & VALIDATION
Concept Testing & Insights

“I think I do admire how reliable it is.”

We then conducted 5 moderated, one-on-one concept testing sessions with our interactive prototype via Maze with members of PHCC to validate the value and efficacy of our designs. Key insights from concept testing included:

Effective integration:Users prefer integrated tools for a seamless experience with other platforms
Visual infographics:Infographic generation is critical for public health communication & outreach
Readability options:Both accessibility & readability must be adjustable for different users
User oversight:Human verification for the accuracy of AI-generated content and sources remains vital

We also analyzed heatmaps and post-test surveys from Maze to give us quantitative data on workflow efficiency and user preferences. From these, our findings are as followed:

Things we did well:

  • ✅ Clean design & user-friendly interface
  • ✅ Versatile & efficient interactions with credible sources
  • ✅ High relevance to public health communication tasks
  • ✅ Clear, linear navigation task flows

Things to improve on:

  • ⚠️ High variance in task completion rate & duration
  • ⚠️ Difficult task expectations for certain features
  • ⚠️ Unclear functionality for specific features
  • ⚠️ Neutral-to-slightly positive emotional experience
View Concept Testing Analysis
Hand-off Process

Jotting down our final thoughts for future work.

Afterwards, we made prototype iterations based on the concept testing feedback and left specific annotations, recommendations, and references for inspiration in our hand-off file for the client and the outsourced developer team.

RESULTS
Prototype
Results

An overall successful first step with informative future plans.

Our work yielded high satisfaction ratings from both participants and the client, with great overall usability and relevant features. From a more holistic approach, we addressed frustrations for public health communicators and drove engagement with the product — to the point many participants verbalized excitement to see what the next steps are.

This enthusiasm reflected the business impact we had this project phase, which includes:

CX persona & journey maps:
  • Clarified audience journey for AKARI
  • Led to more intentional product scoping & feature prioritization for VeriComms
UX & research insights:
  • Strengthened market opportunity & positioning of VeriComms
  • Led to more conversations with funders & partners
VeriComms prototype:
  • Helped shape the early design strategy for the expected pilot launch
Product recommendations:
  • Redefined company's narrative that creators & communicators use AI to simplify the science translation process instead of replacing creativity

“I do like how … because of how versatile it is to navigate it and like it's pretty simple.”

- Participant 65 (User Test Participant 3)

4
Product changes to refine market opportunities & positioning*
*Measurable impact & qualitative outcomes shared by the client team
75.7
“Excellent” ranked System Usability Scale (SUS) score**
**Data calculated from 10 Likert-scale post-test questions & ranked based on standard practice
95%
Client satisfaction score***
***Based on client endpoint feedback & survey
REFLECTIONS & NEXT STEPS
Final Thoughts & Takeaways

The first step is always the hardest to take.

Uncertainty was the biggest constraint:

This project phase had many more moving parts than our previous work, and there were moments where the direction shifted mid-way because new information from the client changed our project scope. Navigating that without losing momentum taught me that adaptability isn't just about staying calm, but also about keeping research and design decisions clear and aligned so that a pivot doesn't mean starting over.

The impact was palpable:

Our work reflected and reinforced the importance of balancing user needs with business goals and constraints, thus earning us praise from both participants from various public health sectors, and the client team themselves.

To hear from the client herself about how our efforts were "extremely efficient, useful, and well-organized" and "have set them up for success" really makes me proud of the measurable impact we were able to produce in the short time we had.

Next Steps for Future Projects

What's coming next?

The iterative process continues:

In the next phase, I'd have more rounds of user testing, including one with the indirect stakeholders at PHCC, to continuously refine features for different public health sectors with a newer perspective.

Additionally, more discovery and user research will constantly update our knowledge about how public health communicators react to the current market of products out there. This will ensure that we stay informed of how we can build unique, optimized, and effective products for them.

Revisit S2P as a company:

With S2P's plans to scale out and build more tools and products, I'd collaborate with the stakeholder to explore some of the organization's CX itself. This could enhance awareness and engagement for all types of customers and provide valuable business insights, potentially securing a population of loyal and invested customers in the future.