Ivan Hovanov
UI/UX Designer / Team Lead

Too many requests! You have made too many requests!! No more requests!!!
– How many times do you have to hear that before you get really angry?Amazon Chime API’s request throttling tested our patience like this. But all we ever wanted was to make a simple text chat app work! In this article, you’ll find out why Chime was so unkind to us, what we did to turn things around, and how you too can follow the path we forged.

The HealthTech market is developing rapidly: according to Statista, by the end of 2024, its global capitalization is expected to reach a record 610.20 billion US dollars. However, as the number of digital solutions in this sector grows, so does the competition, forcing organizations to seek to establish a strong position through the loyalty of their audience. One of the most effective ways to achieve it is improving the quality of service, which in the context of digital services can be equivalent to providing a top user experience. Actually, our article reveals this topic in detail.

HealthTech Market Overview

Currently, one of the largest segments of the medical technology market is medical equipment (in particular, in 2024, its capitalization will reach 511.20 billion US dollars). At the same time, the main directions in which this sector is going to develop are diagnostics and intervention related to the treatment of diseases, genetic research, and patient mobility.

The development of these three verticals is primarily caused by the aging population, a significant part of which actually ensures the constant growth of investments in the development of the medical technology sector.

Overall, taking into account the trends described above, it becomes clear that in the context of providing advanced user experience for medical technology solutions, it will primarily focus on the integration of existing systems with wearable devices or the complete migration of certain medical services to wearables and/or mobile devices.

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What Is HealthTech UX Design?

HealthTech UX design is an approach to the design of medical digital solutions that takes into account all aspects of the product from the user's point of view, from visual appeal and functionality to medical device usability and accessibility.

Generally speaking, providing a premium user experience should be one of the fundamental goals in any business sector. However, when it comes to the provision of medical services, often the achievement of this goal is the only possible option to provide some patients with a specific service, which can be explained either by temporary restrictions in mobility or by the presence of permanent mental or physical disabilities. This actually causes the need to create digital solutions according to the principles of simplicity, intuitiveness, and ergonomics.

It is noteworthy that medical personnel are no less in need of advanced user experience in healthcare software products, as they are often forced to act urgently in stressful situations and follow error-free decisions.

In turn, a well-thought-out medical UX design can speed up the execution of targeted actions by users, minimize the risk of errors, and generally reduce the cognitive load that new users of a particular digital solution face the first time.

Key Principles of HealthTech UX Design

Let's look at a few fundamental principles underlying effective UX design for healthcare:

  • Accessibility: patients should be able to fully use the functionality of a particular digital solution, regardless of their physical and mental disabilities.
  • Conciseness: the user interface should not be overloaded – instead, it should demonstrate only those functions that the user currently needs.
  • Mobility: users must be able to access at least some of the services provided by a particular healthcare organization remotely.
  • Consistency: the functionality of a specific digital solution must be presented consistently and logically.
  • Control: user actions within a specific digital solution must be controlled to prevent errors.
  • Context: the interface of digital solutions must be context-sensitive so that users can intuitively perform targeted actions in it.

Best Practices in HealthTech UX Design

In this paragraph, we suggest that you consider a number of best practices that will help you bring HealthTech UX design to life.

Focus on the end user

Before you start working on a design, you will need to try to perceive it from the point of view of the end user to understand what possible problems they may encounter and what solutions will be optimal for them. Design thinking methods such as user research, as well as creating user personas and user flows based on surveys, personal data, etc., can help you with this.

Don't overload your screens

You should not place all the functions that have to be presented in your digital solution on the same screen. Instead, try to create a convenient, context-sensitive hierarchy and, according to it, divide the functionality into groups, placing each of them on a separate screen.

Create intuitive navigation

Your users must understand intuitively how to perform this or that action. Typically, the “rule of three” is used for this – that is, to complete a particular task, the user must complete no more than three steps. If this is not possible, make sure that your product contains clear and unambiguous hints leading to the goal.

Maintain balance

The visual component of your product also plays an important role: in particular, the user interface should look well-balanced, harmonious, and have a consistent style without being annoying.

Ensure compliance with data security standards and regulations

Make sure that while using your product, consumers cannot accidentally leak personal data (that is, every operation requiring their personal data must be performed by them consciously, after obtaining their consent). To do this, you will need to focus your design development process on FDA recommendations, HIPAA, GDPR, and ISO 62366.

Provide alternative control and navigation tools

Your users may have certain limitations in using the vast majority of digital solutions, so your main task will be to help them overcome them within your product. In particular, we are talking about ensuring product usability and accessibility by providing alternative navigation and control tools (for example, through voice input). More information on how to achieve accessibility in interaction design can be found in the WCAG 2.0 guidelines.

Consider implementing responsive design

If you consider launching your solution on multiple platforms (for example, on mobile and desktop devices), you will need to implement a responsive medical app design that will scale the screens of this solution to the dimensions and orientation of a specific user device.

Base on user feedback

As you complete the prototyping stage and/or launch new versions of your ready-made solution, you need to collect feedback from real users and optimize the UX design in accordance with their complaints, needs, goals, and wishes.

Challenges Of UX Design For HealthTech

Along with following the principles described above, you should also understand what challenges you will have to overcome during the UX design implementation.

Bringing complex workflows into the digital plane

Many workflows in the healthcare sector are multi-step and require the participation of multiple parties. In this regard, one of the most difficult tasks of UX designers is to transfer them to the digital plane, accompanied by simplification and reducing the risk of errors. As for overcoming this challenge, most often, teams have to start their work on a project by creating its tree-like architecture - this is the easiest way to remove unnecessary steps and correctly group functionality that requires the same actions on the part of the end user.

Ensuring regulatory compliance

When designing a user interface, designers must take into account standards that ensure the protection of private user data and prevent its abuse. The same applies to providing accessibility for solutions that patients with disabilities can use. After work on the project is completed, it will need to obtain a certificate of conformity from an independent authority authorized to issue such certificates.

Data visualization

If a particular digital solution operates on large volumes of data and generates analytical conclusions based on them, UX designers may well encounter difficulties in presenting them in a simple and understandable form for the end user. Usually, this problem is solved by testing several visualization options: charts, line graphs, pie charts, etc., and choosing the one that seemed most convenient for the vast majority of respondents.

Final Thoughts

We hope that now, you understand the differences between the process of developing a UX design for a medical sector and the usual one. That’s why it’s so important when looking for a UX design healthcare contractor to turn to specialists who already have experience creating digital products in this niche. In particular, you can contact us, and we will bring your idea to life in accordance with all standards and regulations accepted in your region.

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