Trivo
Brand Design, Product Design, Mobile Design
April 2024
San Francisco, US
A platform that addresses the lack of trust, accuracy, and retention in the current clinical trial searching process through a patient-centered conversational UI.
The project Won 1st place in the Mindstate SF Ideation Competition - a global 4-day hackathon focusing on medical digital products, held in San Francisco, and organized in collaboration with Cornell Business School.
An AI-powered, conversation-based clinical trial finder
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Clinical trial discovery is confusing, biased, and full of friction
Cancer patients and doctors struggle to identify the most suitable clinical trials. The current process is fragmented, unclear, and filled with manual steps. Patients face confusing information and limited visibility, while researchers lose time on inefficient recruitment.
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90%
of cancer patients may be missing out on potentially life-saving new treatments.
More than
~4.5%
of cancer patients who are eligible for clinical trials participate in them
Only
The numbers show a significant gap between patients who are eligible for life-saving clinical trials and those who ultimately participate in them, pointing to the need for a dedicated platform that improves discovery and matching.
USERS RESEARCH
What we needed to understand before designing Trivo
As part of the user research, we conducted interviews with a diverse group of participants, including:
Interviews Key Questions
3 x Cancer Patients
Navigating trial discovery, eligibility, and enrollment
What concerns or fears do you have about participating in clinical trials?
What are your main questions or information needs about
clinical trials?
What made it difficult to find or understand the information you were looking for?
4 x Clinical Researchers
Screening, matching, and recruiting patients
What is your process for actively searching for participants?
Do you communicate to the patients directly or through
their doctors?
What criteria would you use to pick the best option for
your patient?
Recommending trials and guiding patient
5 x Oncologists
How do doctors currently select or refer patients to clinical trials?
What tools do you currently use to find or refer clinical
trials to patients?
What information or format helps you most when discussing trial options with patients?
The goal was to better understand the user groups’ experiences, challenges, and needs in the clinical trial enrollment journey.
USER RESEARCH
Core pain points across the trial enrollment journey
Patterns that emerged across patients, clinicians, and researchers
Information Overload
Clinical language and dense information make it difficult for patients to understand eligibility and assess whether a trial is right for them.
Rigid Interface
Small changes in patient criteria require restarting the entire search, making the process inefficient and discouraging exploration.
Lengthy & Robotic Intake
Long, rigid intake forms ask for high effort upfront, often ending in disqualification without context or guidance.
Unclear Next Steps
Even after finding a potential match, patients are left unsure how to proceed, with little guidance on next steps or enrollment requirements.
Difficulty Comparing Trials
Patients struggle to compare trials meaningfully, without clear explanations of differences, tradeoffs, or personal relevance.
Institutional Limitations
Referral paths are often constrained by institutional networks, limiting access to relevant trials beyond a patient’s care center.
USER RESEARCH
What do these pain points reveal about the enrollment experience
Barriers to trial enrollment, from multiple perspectives:
RETENTION
"The real value-add of clinical trial finders is in getting people signed up for trials."
Dr. Justin Bekelman
Director, Penn Center for
Cancer Care Innovation
TRUST
"Patients need a trusted advocate to guide them through the process."
Isabel Macdonald, PhD
Senior Behavioral Scientist,
Irrational Labs
PRECISION
"Genomic data from health records could match patients with 90% of specialized trials, yet it's still untapped by trial finders."
Professor Ido Wolf
Head of Oncology Division, Tel Aviv Medical Center
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Opportunity to increase clinical trial enrollment
COMPETITOR ANALYSIS
Market Landscape: Where current platforms fall short
We compared leading clinical trial finder platforms to identify how current players address the users’ needs
FEATURE
OUR SOLUTION
Can patients easily browse and filter available clinical trials?
Does the platform collect what’s needed to assess eligibility?
Does the platform provide clear
user guidance?
Can patients easily reach the right trial contact person?
Do patients understand why a trial fits their medical profile?
Do patients understand their next steps in the enrollment process?
Current solutions prioritize trial visibility, but fall short in helping patients move forward.
Trivo reframes the solution and provides a personalized guided enrollment journey
DEFINE
Product Goals: What does the product must include to streamline enrollment
Rapid Patient Intake
Simplify trial discovery and reduce manual steps, enabling patients to enroll faster.
Smart, Personalized Matching
Leverage automated matching based on medical profiles and eligibility criteria.
Broaden Patient Access
Make it easy for patients to join clinical trials beyond their hospitals.
One-Click Outreach
Provide seamless, transparent communication channels among patients, doctors, and research institutions.
Save Researcher Time
Establish a single, unified matching workflow that cuts manual effort for oncologists and research centers.
THE SOLUTION
Turning a complex process into
an AI-guided, conversational experience
Trivo is an AI-driven mobile platform that helps cancer patients discover and match with best-fit clinical trials - minimizing effort while maximizing trust, clarity, and confidence throughout the enrollment journey.
Onboarding
Replaces immediate trial exposure with context-setting and expectation alignment
Onboarding
Breaks long, rigid forms into gradual steps that reduce overwhelm.
Intake
(Progressive
Disclosure)
Intake
Evaluates eligibility first, so patients see only trials that are relevant to them.
Personalized Trial Matching
Trial Matching
Frames trial information around fit and relevance, not raw clinical data.
Exploring
Trials Details
Explore Trials
Designs the handoff moment most platforms leave unresolved
Doctor Consultation
& Outreach
Doctor Outreach
Maintains clarity and momentum after the handoff
Next Steps
& Engagement
Next Steps
DESIGN
The new step-by-step flow built to support patients with clarity
Finding & Joining a Clinical Trial in Trivo
Tap step to learn more
DEFINE
Design Principals
01
Reduce cognitive load
Minimize mental effort through clear, focused interactions.
02
Increase confidence in the process
Provide clear rationale, transparency, and context behind every recommendation.
03
Personalize relevance
Adapt recommendations to each patient’s context, focusing on relevance and clarity rather than volume.
04
Make discovery and enrollment simple and guided
Lead users step by step through complex choices with clear explanations and direction.
05
Preserve momentum
Avoid dead ends and continuously signal what comes next.
06
Design mobile-first
Keep interactions lightweight, optimized for small screens, and easy to complete on mobile.
Trivo User Journey
Start a conversation
Current Clinical Trial Finders
Browse Trials
Add a Title
Trivo User Journey
Start a conversation
Trivo User Journey
Browse Trials
1 LANDING PAGE
Build trust through
conversational onboarding
A supportive, conversational tone frames the intake as a guided exchange rather than a rigid form, helping patients feel informed and confident from the very first interaction.
Simplify patient input
The intake is designed as a guided, step-by-step exchange. Breaking complex medical information into small prompts and surfacing only relevant options, the experience reduces effort and keeps users focused on what matters at each moment.
Highlight the next action
Each step is intentionally designed around a single, clearly emphasized CTA. Visual hierarchy and focused actions guide attention forward, reducing hesitation and keeping progress steady.
Guided trial Discovery
Trial options are intentionally limited to a small number of personalized matches, with clear labels that explain their relevance. By focusing on quality over quantity, the experience helps patients compare options meaningfully and move forward with confidence.
Streamline researcher outreach
The interface is designed to reduce friction at the moment of decision. Clear calls-to-action connect discovery directly to consultation, helping patients move forward without needing to interpret next steps on their own.
Embedding the doctor into the decision flow
The interface brings a human layer into the decision by inviting patients to involve their own doctor, enabling shared evaluation of trial options at the point of decision
Designing away manual effort
Instead of writing messages or navigating complex processes, the design offers a small set of ready-made outreach options, removing unnecessary effort while preserving user intent.
DEsign
How Design Decisions Shape a Clearer, More Supportive Trial-Finding Experience
Concrete interface choices that turn research insights into guided patient experiences.
Takeaways
What I learned from designing Trivo
01
Market understanding shapes product direction
Analyzing existing clinical trial platforms revealed where patients are underserved in existing solutions. These gaps helped define a clearer product direction and guided the core design decisions.
02
User conversations reveal hidden barriers
Conversations with patients and doctors exposed everyday fears, confusion, and decision barriers that don’t surface in data alone. These insights shaped how the experience feels, not just how it functions.
03
The Value of Shared Thinking
Designing Trivo alongside Cornell Tech business students reinforced the value of cross-disciplinary collaboration, helping connect design decisions to strategy, prioritization, and real-world constraints.