In-Depth Persona Creation

To build clarity and alignment across Radicle Health’s growing EHR product suite, I led a comprehensive research initiative to define eight key user personas. By combining 40+ in-depth interviews with a quantitative survey of 567 users, we identified clear persona distinctions, systemic usability challenges, and opportunities for design and product strategy.

Objectives

  • Develop actionable, research-backed personas to inform product decisions

  • Validate and enrich these personas through large-scale quantitative analysis

  • Identify cross-cutting frustrations and feature gaps across roles and populations to inform roadmap decisions

  • Build internal alignment across product, design, engineering, and sales

Research Methods

1. Qualitative Interviews

  • 40+ user interviews with staff across roles and organizations

  • Targeted roles included clinicians, medical staff, program directors, QA analysts, intake workers, receptionists, system admins, and billing teams

  • Methods included contextual inquiry, remote shadowing, and semi-structured interviews

  • Affinity mapping and thematic analysis were used to extract patterns in workflows, motivations, pain points, and goals

2. Quantitative Survey

  • 567 users completed a platform-wide survey

  • Participants rated Ease of Use and Satisfaction, and provided open-text responses

  • Results segmented by persona, population served (e.g., Mental Health, I/DD, SUD), and residential vs. non-residential programs

  • Confidence intervals were calculated to support meaningful comparisons across user groups of varying sizes

Persona Set

Eight personas were created, representing primary users and their JTBD across Radicle’s customer base:

  1. Reception Desk

  2. Intake Staff

  3. Clinician / Case Worker / DSP

  4. Medical Staff

  5. Program Director

  6. System Administrator

  7. Billing Staff

  8. QA / Compliance / Data Analyst

Each persona includes:

  • Primary tasks and workflows

  • Most frustrating interactions

  • Satisfaction and ease of use benchmarks

  • Environment-specific observations (e.g., residential vs. outpatient)

Key Findings

Clinicians Are the Most Underserved

  • 290+ clinician survey responses showed below-average satisfaction across all settings

  • Pain points were systemic: documentation burden, redundant data entry, slow navigation, and disconnected workflows

  • Improving clinician experience = lifting the floor for all users

Documentation Burden Is Universal

  • Intake, Medical Staff, Program Directors, and Clinicians all cited documentation as their #1 task and #1 frustration

  • Open-text responses described frequent workarounds:

    • Using Word docs to avoid glitches

    • Tracking appointments in Google Sheets

    • Redoing forms to fix sync issues

Reporting is a Growing Pain

  • QA and Program Directors reported frustration with current reporting tools

  • They weren’t asking for advanced BI — just simple, consistent, customizable exports

  • Data analysis is brittle, manual, and can’t scale to agency needs

A new reporting dashboard that has been in the works for the AWARDS EHR

Impact

  • Personas became a core reference for product, design, engineering, and CX

  • Drove roadmap prioritization for intake, documentation, and reporting

  • Helped sales and customer success tailor their language to each user group

  • Unlocked deeper discovery for initiatives like billing and reporting improvements

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