HealthcareField ResearchRealtime PrototypePGD IxD
Saral
An appointment system that respects how small clinics already work
Scroll
TheProblem
Walk into a small clinic in India and you see the same picture every time. A paper register on the front desk, a quiet queue of patients with no real sense of when they'll be seen, and one receptionist holding the entire day in her head. The real problem isn't waiting. It's not knowing. Patients don't know their turn. Doctors don't know what's coming next. And if the receptionist takes a day off, the clinic almost shuts down.
Patients sat for 45+ minutes without any visibility into their turn. One patient showed up for a 7 PM verbal appointment and was told "no formal booking on your name"
One receptionist held the entire clinic in her head. "I remember them by face. I have been here for 16 years." Her absence stopped the clinic
Doctors had already rejected over-digitised solutions. One paid for Practo's 150 features and used zero. The subscription was a yearly loss
WhatsApp, Google Business, and a paper register was the actual clinic stack. Not Practo. Not Healthify
A GP told us 50% of treatment happens through communication and comfort alone. Any system that broke that human touch would be rejected on sight
02
13 interviews, four cities, one pattern
We didn't start with a screen. We started in clinics. Over six weeks I sat in waiting rooms across Mumbai, Durgapur, Vellore, and Noida and talked to the people who actually run them. Six doctors across five specialities. Three receptionists. Four patients with very different reasons to be there. The same pattern showed up everywhere.
01
13 contextual interviews. 6 doctors (BHMS, MBBS, Ayurveda, Dentist, Orthodontist, GP), 3 receptionists, 4 patients across 4 cities
02
Phoolwati, a receptionist of 16 years, ran an entire two-doctor clinic on memory. She knew every regular by face
03
A senior doctor called Practo "a huge waste of money". 150 features, he used zero. He used WhatsApp like everyone else we met
04
A Vellore patient could not access her own medical records. The hospital owned her account. Patient data was a black box
05
Paper queue sheets weren't a legacy holdover. They were fast, they didn't crash, and the receptionist could see the whole day in one glance
06
One GP put it plainly. "Patient ka 50% treatment toh ussi se hojata hai." Half the cure is the conversation
TheShift
Going in, we thought we were designing an appointment booking app. We were wrong. The clinics didn't need an app. They needed a system that fit inside the way they already work, and quietly removed the uncertainty everyone was carrying. That reframe changed everything we designed after it.
The Problem
Our first concept was a digital booking app for patients and a complex schedule manager for doctors. Practo, but better. Four doctors looked at it and politely told us they would never use it.
The Insight
“Don't replace the clinic. Reduce its uncertainty. The receptionist stays the centre of gravity. The paper register stays. WhatsApp stays. We only add what removes the not-knowing.”
New Direction
Saral became an ecosystem, not an app. QR-based check-in, a receptionist dashboard that mirrors the paper register, a doctor view that surfaces only the next patient, and WhatsApp as the patient channel.
From 40 HMWs to three concept directions
We pinned every quote, observation, and frustration onto a wall and clustered them. The affinity map gave us 40+ "How might we" prompts. Those collapsed into three concept directions. We took each one back to two doctors and a receptionist before writing any code.
- Direction A. Full online booking. Patients book on a website, doctors approve, all data digital. Rejected because it cut out walk-ins, which are 60% of small-clinic traffic
- Direction B. WhatsApp-only flow. Promising, but it put the receptionist back at the centre of every message
- Direction C. Hybrid QR plus receptionist dashboard. Walk-ins scan a QR at the door, get a token, the queue lives on the receptionist's screen and on each patient's phone. Existing flow preserved, uncertainty removed
- Sketches focused on the receptionist dashboard first. If she didn't trust it, nothing else would matter
- We tested low-fi paper prototypes with 4 doctors and 1 receptionist before writing a single line of code
Process sketch
Early dashboard sketch. Queue on the left, patient detail on the right, drag-to-reorder for emergencies, doctor state on a parallel column.
05
Feature Deep Dive
RealtimeQRcheck-inandqueuesync
The signature feature is the one that ties the whole system together. A patient walks into the clinic, scans the QR sticker on the counter, fills three fields on their phone, and gets a token. From that moment on, their phone, the receptionist's dashboard, and the doctor's tablet stay in sync in real time. Wait time visible. Position visible. Emergency overrides one drag away.
- Patient check-in takes under 30 seconds on a phone. Three fields. Name, phone, reason. No app to download
- Token issues automatically. The patient's phone shows their position and a live wait estimate that updates as the doctor moves through patients
- The receptionist dashboard mirrors the paper register one-to-one, with one addition. Drag any patient to the top for an emergency. The queue resyncs across every device in under a second
- When the doctor finishes a consultation, prescription photos uploaded from the dashboard go straight to the patient's WhatsApp. No printer, no waiting at the counter
- Built on Next.js with a Supabase realtime backend, so every screen reflects the same source of truth
User flow — 6 steps
1
QR at the door
Sticker on the counter. Patient scans. No app, no download
2
30-second check-in
Three fields. Name, phone, reason. That's it
3
Token plus live queue
Position and live wait estimate visible on the patient's phone
4
Receptionist dashboard
Queue mirrors the paper register. One glance, the whole day
5
Drag for emergency
Walk-in with chest pain. Drag to top, queue resyncs across every screen in under a second
6
Prescription on WhatsApp
Photo uploaded from the dashboard. Lands on the patient's phone before they leave the chair
Threescreens,onesystem
Saral runs on three surfaces and one shared backend. The receptionist dashboard is the centre of gravity, designed to feel like the paper register she already trusts. The doctor's tablet view is minimal on purpose. Only the next patient, only the relevant history. The patient's WhatsApp flow keeps people on the channel they already use. Everything in between is just sync.
- Receptionist dashboard. Queue list, drag-to-reorder, patient detail panel, emergency override, today's appointments at a glance
- Doctor tablet view. The next patient, their reason for visit, their last three visits, a "done" button that releases the next patient to come in
- Patient WhatsApp flow. Confirmation message on check-in, live position updates, prescription delivery, follow-up reminder
- Realtime sync layer means the receptionist, doctor, and patient never see stale state. The queue is one source of truth across three devices
- Privacy by default. Patient data lives in the clinic's account, with patient-readable summaries sent over WhatsApp. No data lock-in like the Vellore example we kept seeing
Key Screens
My Role
Ico-leddesignwiththreeteammatesandpersonallybuilttheworkingprototype.Thefourofussharedresearch,synthesis,andconceptwork.Iownedthereceptionistdashboardendtoend,therealtimearchitecture,andtheengineering.IbuilttheprototypeinNext.jswithaSupabaserealtimebackendsowecoulddemoaworkingsystemonthedayofthefinalreview,notaFigmaclickthrough.Abhiledthepatientflowdesign.Hetalledthedoctorviewandvisualsystem.Vinayakledresearchsynthesisandthetwouser-testingrounds.
08
What happened
The final review was the moment the system stopped being an idea. We put the receptionist dashboard on a projector at the front of the class, taped a QR sticker on a chair, and asked our classmates to book an appointment. Thirty people scanned, checked in on their own phones, and watched their tokens appear on the dashboard in real time. The class felt connected to the system before we said a word about it.
13
Interviews
2
Prototype rounds
30+
Live demo participants
4
Cities studied
Reflection
ThreethingsfromthisprojectchangedhowIwork. First,themostdisruptivedesignisoftenthemostrespectfulone.Theclinicsalreadyhadaworkingsystem.Paper,memory,WhatsApp.Ourjobwasnottoreplaceit.Itwastoremovetheonethingnobodyhadasolutionfor,whichwasnotknowingwhatwasabouttohappennext. Second,buildwhatyoudesign.Themomentourconceptranonrealdevicesinarealroom,theconversationaboutitchangedcompletely.Peoplestoppedimaginingtheproductandstartedusingit. Third,anecosystembeatsanapp.Saralisnotascreen.Itisasynclayerbetweenthreepeoplewhoalreadymeeteverydayinasmallroom.Thedesignwasfiguringoutwhattoadd,whattoleavealone,andwhattoneverdigitise.