Healthcare UI/UX Design

Cutting-edge UI/UX Design Strategies for Healthcare Software to Stand Out

Cutting-edge UI/UX Design Strategies for Healthcare Software to Stand Out

Designing healthcare digital solutions requires a unique approach, prioritizing user needs and accessibility. Unlike other apps, healthcare applications must cater to diverse users, from teenagers to the elderly, ensuring the UI is intuitive and adaptable. Key best practices include designing for specific user groups, balancing aesthetics with functionality, and using appropriate color schemes to enhance usability. Simple navigation, personalized experiences, and continuous testing and updates are essential. Successful healthcare apps blend strategic design with user-centric features, ensuring they are both functional and engaging for all users.

Introduction

Designing a healthcare digital solution is a different ball game compared to other apps. It's not just about getting the user's attention; it's about catering to a wide range of needs and abilities. Your users could be anyone from a teenager with a sports injury to an elderly person struggling to read small text. This diversity means your UI design can't be one-size-fits-all. It needs to be intuitive, accessible, and adaptable to different users, each with their unique health status and physical abilities. So, if you're stepping into the world of digital health solutions, remember: good UI design in this space isn't just nice to have; it's essential. 

Discover the transformative impact of UI/UX in healthcare technology into our next blog.

Let's explore some of the best UI design practices that can help make your healthcare app functional and a favourite among all your users.

Tips for implementing UI/UX best practices for your next digital healthcare project 

Design for the user, not the provider  

Your digital healthcare solution would cater to a subset of a broad spectrum of end users. Here are a few ways to stay focused on their experience.

  • User Perspective & Expectations: Understand the specific perspective and expectations of your app's users.
  • Target Audience Distinction: Identify if your target audience is healthcare providers using a desktop for clinical trials or patients tracking symptoms on mobile.
  • Avoid Merging Demographics: Refrain from combining multiple user demographics, like doctors and patients, into a single app, as it might not fully satisfy either group and could impair app performance.
  • Prioritise Accessibility & Inclusivity: Ensure your app is accessible and inclusive, making it usable for people with disabilities. This enhances overall user satisfaction and engagement.

Don’t forget about the function

In healthcare app design, it's all about striking the right balance. You want your app to look good and feel intuitive, but at the end of the day, it's got to do its job well. Healthcare applications are devised to offer specific functions or supplement medical services, and they must be delivered as promised. This focus on functionality ensures that your healthcare app is not just visually appealing but also reliable and valuable to the end-user.

Choose the right colours

First impressions, emotional connections, brand recognition and usability enhancement can be accomplished using the right colours. Colour theory plays a pivotal role in designing healthcare apps. Colours can evoke emotions and communicate messages nonverbally, like choosing calming colours for patients to feel at ease. 

A harmonious colour scheme prevents the app from looking messy or chaotic, which enhances the user's visual experience. Colours also help define elements like the brand logo, app icon, app screens, and Call to Action (CTA) buttons, which are critical for branding and improving user recall. Effective use of colour aids navigation and usability by distinguishing between different sections, controls, and actions within the app.  

“The right colour palette can not only enhance the aesthetic appeal but also impact user behaviour, branding, and the overall user experience,” says Dr Aakash Doshi, CEO of Montar HealthTech. 

Alignment and balance 

The look and feel of healthcare apps across devices like mobiles, tablets, and smartwatches necessitate a focus on alignment and balance to ensure a seamless user experience. For instance, 

  • Display Modes: Tailor the app's display to device specifics, like landscape mode on tablets for better health metric visualisation and portrait mode on mobiles for easier one-handed navigation.
  • Design System Implementation: Use a design system that follows a hierarchy for web-based solutions, organising all design elements into a unified approach that considers each platform's specifics.
  • Visual Balance: Ensure that the visual weight of the design is evenly distributed across different screen sizes, contributing to a harmonious and aesthetically pleasing interface.

Easy navigation 

Keeping navigation simple is critical to a positive digital healthcare experience. While the 3-tap rule is popular, it's not always necessary. For example, popular apps make it harder to turn off notifications and bury them behind multiple clicks.

Aim for fewer clicks, especially for accessing crucial information or functions. This approach not only enhances user satisfaction but also strikes a balance between accessibility and simplicity, which is essential for a user-friendly healthcare app.

Provide instructive onboarding 

Accessing mHealth apps can feel foreign and complex to patients from diverse backgrounds. Instructive onboarding ensures a smooth user transition into your digital healthcare app. 

  • Employ progressive disclosure to unveil features steadily, making the learning curve manageable. 
  • Begin with a simple onboarding process, breaking down actions into bite-sized tasks and offering instructions one step at a time. 
  • Incorporate contextual help tips within the app interface for added guidance, with an option for users to toggle this feature off, catering to novice and experienced users while maintaining a clean, uncluttered interface.

Automate and optimise

Developing and maintaining healthcare apps can be complex and challenging. Here, DevOps becomes the differentiating factor for automating and optimising your digital healthcare project. DevOps enables swift identification, building, testing, and deployment of changes required in an app, accelerating the delivery of new features while maintaining high-quality standards.

Unlock the secrets to timely, high-quality healthcare software – Delve into DevOps and Agile methodologies in our blog linked here. 

The result is minimised downtime and a pleasant user experience. As users of your healthcare app enjoy the latest updates and improvements, it remains relevant, reliable, and user-friendly, evolving the needs and expectations of your user base.

Leave room for personalization  

Ex-Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer once stated, 'The future is personalisation.' In healthcare apps, this means allowing users to customise their experience with options like theme, font size, and button dimensions. Simplified dashboards for beginners and customisable widgets enhance the app's accessibility and user-friendliness, catering to diverse preferences and needs.

Continuous testing and upgrading 

To keep your healthcare web app up-to-date and user-friendly, consider it an ongoing journey rather than a one-time task. Regular testing and staying on top of emerging trends are key. By keeping an eye on how users interact with your app and which features they use most, you'll get valuable insights. This feedback loop helps you make smart updates, ensuring your app keeps improving and in tune with user needs.

Enhancing engagement through interactive and user-friendly features 

If you want to retain your user’s attention, you could introduce:  

  • Animations & Micro-interactions: Use animations to guide users and micro-interactions for a responsive, engaging experience. Example: Animated characters in a fitness app to show progress.

         Explore the top tools that bring healthcare UI/UX designs to life. Begin your journey with the best resources in the industry.

  • Contextual Cues: Offer relevant information and guidance based on the user's current situation. Example: Contextual help in finding medication information or scheduling appointments in a healthcare app.
  • Feedback for User Actions: Provide clear feedback so users know the impact of their actions.

7 Steps to creating a successful digital health software 

Ready to build a successful digital health software? It's all about getting the right mix of strategy, design, and feedback. Let's walk through seven essential steps to make the process smooth and effective, balancing function with UI/UX. 

1. Design Planning and Research 

​​How well you know your users could be the differentiator between the success and failure of your healthcare app.35% of startups fail because they build products that nobody wants, highlighting the importance of validating product ideas with users early on in the development process. Thorough research into user behaviours and industry best practices informs vital design decisions, laying a solid foundation for a smooth user experience.

Your insider's guide to designing impactful digital health software is here. Step into the world of effective app and web development in healthcare

2. UI/UX Design Principles 

Adhering to User-Centered Design (UCD) principles and conducting usability testing are crucial to drive quick adoption of healthcare software and apps. They must be intuitive and easy to navigate, even for those with limited technical experience. Designers should use clear and concise labels, provide helpful instructions, and follow industry standards, including wireframes, functional design, appropriate colours, fonts, and language.

3. Design Audit 

A design audit is a systematic evaluation of the effectiveness and usability of healthcare software or app design. Design audits can be conducted on both existing and new software/apps. For existing software/apps, a design audit can help identify areas of design improvement to make it more user-friendly and efficient. For new software/apps, a design audit ensures that the design is well-conceived and meets the needs of the target users.

A design audit typically involves the following steps:

  • Planning: The first step is to define the scope of the audit and identify the key areas to be evaluated. The scope should include the user interface, user experience, and overall usability of the software/app.
  • Evaluation: The next step is to evaluate the software/app against the defined criteria. User interviews, usability testing, and reviewing analytics data should be included in an evaluation.
  • Reporting: The final step is to compile a report that summarises the audit’s findings and identifies any areas for improvement.

The findings of a design audit are used as a guide for making the necessary refinements to the healthcare software design.

4. MVP/IPT Development 

In the development phase, focusing on MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and IPT (Iterative Prototype Testing) is vital. Early and frequent user feedback helps address usability issues and validate design decisions, ensuring the app meets the target users' needs.

Master the art of interactive prototyping for your digital healthcare product. Learn why it's crucial and how to do it effectively.

5. Redesign 

Healthcare software must continually evolve to keep pace with technological advancements and medical research. Regular feedback from stakeholders, including medical professionals and patients, is invaluable for identifying necessary functional improvements.

Ready to redesign your healthcare app? Get insights into revamping your digital solution for better user engagement and efficiency

6. Launch 

Finally, it all comes down to sharing your healthcare app with the world. 

Launching a healthcare app requires meticulous preparation, encompassing quality assurance, software functionality testing, and compliance with industry standards. A robust marketing and communication strategy is essential to raise user awareness and encourage adoption.

7. Monitor and Iterate 

A thriving healthcare software story goes beyond the launch; it needs continuous improvement and engagement after the release. 

Post-launch, it's important to monitor performance and user feedback. Analytics - using key metrics such as user engagement, retention, and satisfaction- combined with user feedback, guide ongoing improvements. This cycle of monitoring, feedback, and iteration is key to maintaining an app that meets users' evolving needs.

Case study of great UI/UX design in healthcare technology 

The Digihaler app complements the Digihaler inhaler for asthma management. What makes it stand out are:

UI/UX: Clean, user-friendly and easy-to-navigate information-packed screens without the overwhelm
Main screen: Clear colour coding distinguishes doses left, upcoming doses, symptom tracker, and insights
Navigation: Consistent patterns with a bottom bar for main screen access and uniform icons
Reports: Intuitive, at-a-glance reports, including symptom graphs and personalised insights

Overall, Digihaler's UI/UX is well-designed, user-friendly, and informative, making it a valuable tool for asthma patients.

Conclusion 

Creating a successful mHealth app that caters to diverse user preferences and limitations is a challenging task. Understanding and applying best practices of UX design while developing healthcare applications that achieve a balance of aesthetics and functionality will ensure that users are satisfied and engaged. 

It’s a given that UI/UX is a critical piece of healthcare software design. However, processes including user research, design audits, MVP creation and monitoring trends and feedback need to complement design principles for healthcare software to be successful.

Custom mHealth apps crafted with Montar’s deep understanding of healthcare software design principles, tailored to meet distinctive healthcare needs, stand out both in terms of aesthetics and function. 

See what our customers who experienced our medical UI/UX design services for their digital healthcare software say about us. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you.

Key Takeaways 

  1. This article discusses the importance of UI/UX design in healthcare software and provides tips for implementing best practices.
  2. Healthcare apps should be designed with the needs of the users in mind.
  3. Although the mHealth software needs to be aesthetically pleasing, user-friendly, and customisable, the problem the app promised to accomplish should always be maintained.
  4. Once the app is launched, continuous testing and upgrading using DevOps will keep the app relevant.
  5. A go-to-market plan goes hand-in-hand with the right UI/UX design principles for healthcare software to succeed. 
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Dr. Lakshmi Vaswani
Dr. Lakshmi Vaswani

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