DHIS2 - Health platform

The Project

This project is based on Whotopia, a city from the case in the course Platforms and Ecosystems - IN5320. Whotopia is a fictonal city, but this course and the people behind it have real cooperations with multipe countries in Africa. This means even if it's not a real case, the insights and approaches are highly relevant to real-world situations. The project began with a clear problem statement provided by a store manager in Whotopia. The manager highlighted the need for a well-organized system to manage stock balances, past transactions, and provide quick statistics for reviews by the Ministry of Health. This real world problem set the stage for our project's objectives. This project had a 6 week deadline, and on top of that, we had two more courses to juggle. It was a bit hectic, but we managed our time well and kept up with all the deadlines.

How We Worked

We adopted a variation of Scrumban to ensure a smooth and organized workflow. This hybrid approach allowed us to benefit from structured sprint planning and the flexibility of Kanban’s visual task management. We conducted two daily standups each week to keep everyone aligned and address any issues promptly.

The Sprints

Our development process was divided into four sprints, each focusing on different aspects of the application:

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Sprint 1: Initial Planning and Basic Implementation

We began by defining the fundamental functions of the platform, syncing data, and fetching the API. Our design phase involved creating initial layouts in Figma to visualize the user interface. The primary focus was on building a solid foundation for store management functionalities. Given the diverse technology knowledge, particularly in regions like Africa, we had to focus on making the platform as simple, intuitive and feedback-rich as possible. This meant ensuring clear navigation, immediate feedback for user actions, and straightforward processes to accommodate all users, regardless of their tech knowledge. We used the DHIS2 component library to maintain consistency and ensure that our design followed our established usability principles. Personas and user stories were also a big part of this first sprint to make sure we focused on the users needs, and make it eaiser to guide the developers through our thought process. We also created personas of the targeted users to help the team understand the users behaviors, motivations and pain points. All of this was mostly based on quotes and information from the case, like the quote below.

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Sprint 2: Midway Adjustments

In this sprint, we implemented additional requirements such as personnel management and bulk operations. We presented our progress midway to get feedback and decided on what aspects to continue developing. This phase involved significant user interaction to refine the application’s usability. I have to add that our team was extremely productive, and we complemented each other's strengths well. Therefore we were ahead of schedule, and ready to user test.

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Sprint 3: User Testing

User testing played an important role in our development. We conducted two usability tests, one with a nurse and one with a non tech-savvy individual (to represent our targeted user group) to gather diverse feedback.

We chose to usability test with a nurse, because they would represent a domain expert. Here we could test if the nurses associations with health systems was aligned with what we made.

The non tech-savvy was the closest we could find to our actual target group. The organizations that this course cooperates with have explained that the people receive training in using digital systems like the health platforms at the pharmacies, but they use very few digital devices in their everyday lives, so they have very few associations with what they see on screen.


Based on the feedback, we made several changes.

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Sprint 4: Final Adjustments:

‍The final sprint focused on polishing the application, fixing bugs, and ensuring stability. We adhered to DHIS2 design principles where feasible and incorporated final user feedback to refine the UX further. Our goal was to ensure the platform was not only functional but also intuitive and easy to use.

Biggest takeaway

The biggest takeaway from this project was the importance of always keeping the end user in mind during the design process. Our user group was primarily medical personel in lower income countries with less tech knowledge, which meant we needed to avoid creating unnecessary complexity. Focusing on who we were designing for helped us make the platform simple, intuitive, and accessible. It also highlighted the importance of using universal design principles to ensure usability across different user groups. This perspective was important in delivering a product that met the needs of our target users effectively.

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