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CPD mobile application

Designing a mobile experience for time-poor surgeons to record professional development activities with ease.

My role

UX Researcher, UI Designer

Team

Desiree Tsapazis – Lead Business Analyst

Lalita Chavan – User Experience Analyst

Tools used

Adobe XD, Adobe Illustrator

CPD hero.png

What is RACS and CPD?

The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) is responsible for maintaining surgical standards across Australia and New Zealand. Surgeons are required to log Continuing Professional Development (CPD) activities to remain registered with medical boards.

The challenge?

Surgeons are extremely time-poor. Logging CPD activities is mandatory but rarely urgent. It often becomes an administrative burden squeezed between surgeries, consultations, and on-call hours.


The existing desktop platform was not responsive, required access to a computer, and felt time-consuming to use. As a result, logging activities was delayed, frustrating, and inefficient.

The opportunity was clear

Design a mobile-first solution that fits into a surgeon’s real-life workflow and not the other way around.

Framing the problem

How might we help surgeons quickly and intuitively record CPD activities from anywhere, without adding cognitive load to their already demanding schedules?


This was not just about shrinking a desktop interface onto a smaller screen. It was about rethinking the experience for context: short bursts of time, one-handed use, and minimal friction.

Design approach

We followed a human-centered, research-led design process:
1.    Understand the user context
2.    Identify pain points in the current workflow
3.    Explore patterns that work in similar high-compliance systems (competitor analysis)
4.    Prototype, test, iterate


Because surgeons are time-poor, efficiency and clarity became the primary design principles guiding every decision.

Research and why these methods

🔍

Competitor analysis

Analyzed CPD applications by

  • Ausmed

  • ANZCA

  • RACGP

  • CPDme and

  • ANMF

🎙️

Interviews

  • Conducted 34 external and

  • 8 internal interviews

Why Competitor Analysis?

These platforms serve similar professional groups with regulatory requirements. The goal was pattern recognition:
•    How do others structure activity logging?
•    What data visualization models are effective?
This broadened my understanding of established mental models within this domain.

Why Interviews?

Interviews were critical in uncovering both behavioral and emotional pain points - from frustration and cognitive overload to the stress associated with compliance tasks. They were also the only way to gather direct, one-to-one input from surgeons and understand their lived experience firsthand.

Through these conversations, we gained clarity on:

  • When and where surgeons attempt to log their activities

  • What prevents them from recording entries immediately

  • Which information is difficult to locate or interpret

  • How much time, effort, and form complexity they are willing to tolerate.

These insights grounded the design decisions in real-world context rather than assumptions.

Key design decisions

1. Mobile-First design
The solution was designed specifically for mobile behavior:

  • Large tap targets

  • Clear hierarchy

  • Minimal required fields upfront

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2. Reduce Cognitive Load
Instead of presenting full data-entry screens immediately:

  • Introduced simplified activity categories

  • Used structured input formats

  •  Prioritized clarity in labeling and visual grouping

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3. Efficient Use of Screen Real Estate
One of my biggest learnings was letting go of my initial design. My first iteration was visually appealing but not space-efficient. By stepping back and exploring alternative layouts, I improved:

  • Data density without clutter

  • Scan-nability

  • Visual balance

This significantly enhanced usability.

Final Design

CPD mobile app hi-fi screens.png

Key Learnings

  • User feedback and user testing are key to good design. Asking for user feedback from time to time helped me fine-tune the designs.

  • Competitor analysis broadens understanding. The competitor analysis helped me gain insights into what was working well with a similar user group and I could build on it.

  • Do not be fixated on the first design. I couldn’t look past my first design since it appealed to me and I held on to it. But taking a step back and visualising different ways the data could be represented helped me make the use of real estate on the screen better.

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