Besides working on its Mobile App (iOS and Android), Project Ronin also reached out to Pixelmatters to revamp its Web App, aiming to help oncologists track patients' symptoms and side effects in real-time.
The first challenge had a sounding name — data visualization. It was vital to present the patients' information to help doctors make faster and better-informed decisions that would eventually save lives.
Speaking the same language was also a challenge. The team had to learn and understand different healthcare terms, which would significantly impact the project.
Traveling to the US was one of the most relevant moments in this collaboration. With face-to-face interactions, the Pixelmatters team had the chance to understand the true impact this Web App would have on people's lives — there was an urge to move on with its development.
It (literally) meant saving lives.
During this trip, both teams reviewed the technical requirements and priorities using SCRUM. In the long run, because there was such a trustworthy relationship with the client, Pixelmatters' team developed its autonomy and ownership of the product. One example was coordinating the monthly commitments with Project Ronin's Product Manager.
After the project's kick-off, Pixelmatters started learning and quickly understanding the healthcare language, which significantly speeded up the development work, thanks to a reduced back and forth with Project Ronin's Product team.
This learning phase also helped the team become more aware of the industry's best practices and understand the end-user needs, in this case, doctors. For example, any Developer knew that blood values needed to have X decimal places.
It was time to get hands-on with the Web App — the team analyzed the existing dashboard features and discussed how to improve them for healthcare professionals. The sidebar needed to become comprehensive by, for example, allowing the visualization of exams and trials lists.
Project Ronin and Pixelmatters' teams also added a contact form, which showed the clinical patient data in a timeline report, a calendar with upcoming appointments, and a search patients feature.
Data visualization was one of the main challenges when adding new features to the dashboard, some with different data types like weight, blood pressure, etc. To address that, the team created a math formula capable of handling and displaying different data types uniformly.
What else was missing? Presenting all this information accurately in different time zones. The team also ensured the data would be accurate no matter the user's timezone or location.
The team also changed the primary software language to improve Web App's performance and strategy, transitioning from Ruby to Elixir. Project Ronin's also introduced a new pulling approach with a substantial impact on the backend infrastructure, shifting from using a single service (API) to having data from multiples services.
The project remained on track thanks to Pixelmatters' team agility and easiness to adapt in both scenarios.
On a product development process, you need to have a well-oiled Quality Assurance strategy. So, from the get-go, the Pixelmatters team defined a way to constantly be aligned thanks to a dedicated pipeline to running tests.
The team created different environments that allowed an approval mechanism focused on previewing a given feature before a commit. Every unreleased feature was tested before moving on to the production phase, ensuring everything went smoothly.
With the Web App launch, Project Ronin proved to be on the right (and fast) track to revolutionize cancer care treatment and diagnosis with another product that brings doctors and patients closer.
It was one of the most exciting projects I've ever worked on! Besides feeling like being part of only one team, Pixelmatters and Ronin collaborated with a mission full of exceptional human values.
Gil Mendes
Principal Developer at Pixelmatters
