Healthcare App Design: Boosting User Experience and Effectiveness

Posted Apr 16, 2024 via | #Medigy: Health Technology

In healthcare, a well-designed healthcare app can be a lifesaver – literally. If done right, it’s a powerful tool that can transform how care is delivered and how patients manage their health.

Healthcare apps should make life easier for users. That means that a truly successful application has to be built with how people actually use it in mind.

Peter Morville’s UX Honeycomb is a great way to break down UX design’s components:

Usefulness. Does this actually help someone? Does it make managing their health simpler?
Usability. Can people figure it out, or will opening it cause a headache?
Desirability. Does it look and feel good enough that people want to use it?
Findability. Can people easily find that old test result or setting?
Accessibility. Everyone should be able to use the best tools for their health. Does it work for people with disabilities?
Credibility. Health info is serious. Does the company and app feel trustworthy and secure?
Is it worth the effort, or will it sit unused on their phone?

These are the kinds of questions that make for amazing healthcare apps. Every top digital product design company understands that it’s not just about the features — it’s about the whole experience fitting into people’s lives.

Challenges in Healthcare App Design

Healthcare apps have the potential to make a real difference in people’s lives, but let’s be honest, designing them isn’t exactly a walk in the park.

Here’s why:

The complexity of healthcare data. Healthcare app design needs to make that dense health data feel understandable, even actionable. But how to achieve this is something that a designer should have in mind.
Privacy and security concerns. In healthcare, one security slip-up can have serious consequences. Balancing top-notch protection with a user-friendly app is a major design task. Designers must adhere to strict regulatory standards, such as HIPAA in the United States or the DPA 2018 in the United Kingdom. Privacy policies should be made easy to understand.
Integration with existing systems. Getting hospital and clinic systems to communicate with an app is no easy feat, even for an experienced designer. Your app’s ability to function with a hospital or clinic’s electronic health record (EHR) system is crucial.
Diverse user base. Picture the range of people using a healthcare app – from young people who live on their phones to seniors who might be less tech-savvy, and even rushed doctors needing info on the fly. Trying to design something that works for everyone is a tall order.

Approaches for Overcoming Challenges in Healthcare App Design

As noted earlier, healthcare app designs have their own unique set of challenges, but with the right approaches, they can be tackled:

A/B Testing. According to Harvard Business School, A/B testing increases performance in various areas. With A/B testing, you show two slightly different versions of a feature, content, or design to different groups of users to know which one they’d prefer. This data-driven approach takes the guesswork out of design.
Heuristic Evaluation. Sometimes, you need fresh eyes. Usability experts conduct heuristic evaluations — a design checkup according to established principles of heuristics to help spot potential hiccups in app design.
Card Sorting. Card sorting helps you find out how your app should be organised. You give users “cards” representing different app features, and they group them in ways that make sense to them.

4 Features That Improve Healthcare App Design

Let’s talk about some specific features that make a real difference in how people use them and how they impact health:

1. Progress Visualisations

Do you know how most people’s eyes glaze over at a spreadsheet of health numbers? Visualisation techniques help present health info in a comprehensible manner.

You can handle visualisation using the following:

Line graphs. They’re good for tracking trends and can help show how those blood pressure meds are kicking in, or how medication adherence is making a real impact on mood stability.
Bar Charts. They are perfect for the “before and after” story — pre-treatment lab results vs. now. That side-by-side bar chart can be motivating.
Area Charts. Ever wonder why sleep quality is so inconsistent? These charts let users visualise those patterns alongside mood, or see how pain levels spike in the afternoon.

2. Biofeedback Integration

When you design an app that has a real-time conversation with the user’s body, you open up a whole new level of engagement and potential for behaviour change.

Through sensors (in wearables or connected devices), a user’s physiological data, like heart rate, breathing patterns, or muscle tension, is fed directly into the app, allowing them to get a more comprehensive picture of their health and risks and act proactively to improve their health.

With gamification, users can engage in healthy lifestyle patterns or behaviours, turning some boring tasks (like treatment plans) into exciting games.

3. Mood-Enhancing Colour Schemes

Our brains are wired to react to colour on a basic level. Colour psychology is a tool you can use to create a positive emotional experience for users.

Check out these healthcare app staples:

Calmness and Trust. Blues and greens are the ultimate chill pills for our eyes. Perfect for apps where people might be anxious about their health or need to zone in for a meditation session.
Positivity and Energy. Pops of orange and yellow pump up that “I can do this!” energy in the right context.
Cleanliness and Sterility. Hospitals use so much white and light grey they project a sense of cleanliness and professionalism.

4. Blockchain-Powered Health Data Security

It’s understandable that blockchain can be a buzzword overload, but it has serious potential to make health data way more secure.

Blockchain is like a digital record book that can’t be tampered with. Once the data is recorded on a blockchain, it’s impossible to change or delete it without the consensus of other participants of the network.
Blockchain uses cryptography (hashing and digital signatures) for secure data transfer and access.
Blockchain is harder to hack compared to traditional centralized systems. This adds to the security of sensitive healthcare data.

Conclusion

Designing a healthcare app that people want to use requires employing various design concepts and trends. A good product needs to fit into someone’s life, help follow treatment plans, make the routine a habit, and highlight potential risks while educating on how to minimise them.

Healthcare apps can be exciting and fun to use if there are visuals, game elements, intuitive navigation, and nice colour palettes. When done right, they can improve lives, build trust, and revolutionise the patient experience.

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