Year
2024
Overview
PhysiPlay was founded by Paediatric Physiotherapist Sophie McCloskey.
Their aim is to become the number one exercise prescription service used by the NHS to support the health and wellbeing of children with complex needs who are receiving traditional physiotherapy treatment.
Client
Industry
Service
The Challenge
Physiotherapists don’t have the time or tools to personalize exercise plans, yet personalisation is what keeps patients on track. Traditional printouts? Lost, misplaced, forgotten. This causes patients to lose motivation, and their support networks not knowing how to help. There’s a huge opportunity to empower, educate, and inspire—but right now, it’s being missed.
Our Approach
Physiotherapist Key Findings
Talking to physiotherapists, we set clear research goals to keep conversations focused and respectful of their time. The takeaway was clear - personalisation improves adherence, but current tools don’t support it. Some therapists use prescription software, but these often lack represenation in their imagery, making patients feels disconnected. Others tailor treatment based on a patient’s learning style—young children respond best to games, while older ones engage more when they understand the benefits oh physiotherapy.
Patient Key Findings
Parents of children with complex needs find creative ways to blend learning and physical activity into daily life, but it’s not always easy. Consistent feedback keeps younger children engaged, yet parents and carers often struggle to provide it. Apps that offer personalisation and representation help children feel seen, making physiotherapy more engaging, relevant, and motivating.
Ideation Process
We quickly realised that working collaboratively - with input from users - yielded more impactful results. So, we set up workshops to share findings and spark creative brainstorming with exercises such as Crazy 8's. To warm up and not feel too pressured to come up with THE next big idea, we got all our bad ideas out on paper first. After brainstorming multiple solutions, we mapped out detailed user flows to chart the journey, then sketched out some wireframes before digitising them in Figma for testing and refinement.
Testing To See What Works
We tested our concepts with a group of physiotherapists and a parent-child user, assigning physiotherapists the task of prescribing an exercise program and observing how parents and children completed the assignment. The results from this testing cleared up which features worked best, and which ones didn't. This dictated what our MVP what would look like: An app that all begins with the onboarding process - where the child creates an avatar to represent them in the visual exercise plans, as well as a companion that helps them stay on track. Once this has been completed, their physiotherapist will prescribe them exercises which instantly get updated on the child app. The chosen companion helps the child to complete their exercises, whilst the app also gives parents a detailed view on how to support their child throughout this process.
Final Screens
Impact
Our work on PhysiPlay has resulted in a tried and tested, research-backed concept for the stakeholder to present to the NHS. We have defined the project scope, identified the age groups that would benefit most, and determined the most and least effective features. Our research has also provided a clear direction for the next stages of testing and design, ensuring the project moves forward with its user needs at its core.
