No matter which way you approach it, healthcare is a hard market to break into.
If you want to be a doctor, plan on a good 13-20 years of study and focus to get there. If you want to be a healthcare app or technology developer, you might need to consider the same amount of effort.
Not neccesarily in years, but certainly in focus to to make something useful.
According to a report from Allied Market Research, the global mobile health market is expected to grow at an annual growth rate of 33.5% between now and 2020. While this sounds exciting, it does not necessarily mean that positive health results from these apps will be measured at the same pace.
One of the key challenges of any app developer is engagement. Getting people to download your app is one hurdle, but once downloaded, the true challenge is engagement. How many of your user base are actually getting results from the app you’ve created?
This is the exact same challenge in Healthcare. Patient engagement is the buzzword that all healthcare practitioners find elusive and frustrating.
However, when done right, healthcare apps have huge potential for changing lives.
UX Designer Jen Maroney agrees: “During my 13 years of working in the healthcare space I have never before had such a rich opportunity to directly affect health behavior.”
From Utility to Usability
As the web has grown to encompass our whole lives, the focus has shifted from simple utility to usability. What this means in simple terms is that it matters just as much how you get a result, as whether you get the result at all.
Think of Amazon’s ‘One Click’ or Apple’s obsession with minimalist design. The simplistic, narrow focussed usability create massive usefulness.
According to Don Norman, author of bestseller The Design of Everyday Things design is not often considered high on the list when engineers are first creating a new product.
“The reasons for the deficiencies in human-machine interaction are numerous. Some come from the limitations of today’s technology. Some come from self-imposed restrictions by the designers, often to hold down cost. But most of the problems come from a complete lack of understanding of the design principles necessary for effective human-machine interaction.”
So how do you build more usability into your design?
According to NNGroup, technical usability is defined by 5 components:
1) Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?
2) Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?
3) Memorability: When users return after a period of not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency?
4) Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?
5) Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?
In their excellent White Paper on Patient Engagement, Didier Thizy and Lorraine Chapman, suggest three key human aspects of design to integrate.
1) Motivation – The degree of willingness to do a behavior.
2) Ability – The capability to perform the behavior.
3) Trigger – The call to action.
Don’t Make me Enter Data
One of the toughest hurdles that healthcare developers have to overcome is the need for data. The simple fact however is that the more times you request a user to enter information, the less interesting and effective your app becomes.
As Stephen Chan reports in his interview with Amy Cueva, founder of Mad*Pow design agency, “Doctors become data entry specialists instead of helping provide patients with better care.”
In a sense, mobile healthcare apps are doing exactly the same thing to users. Instead of giving them useful health information that empowers them to live better, they are making patients become data entry reporters.
The answer to this problem is to consider how much impact you can make with the fewest data entry points, or use data points from other platforms to leverage information, such as Fitbit or Apple Watch.
Making patients constantly enter data points makes them feel like it is work instead of reward.
To find the fun in your app, revert back to simplicity and humanness. The more the app feels human, the more people will interact with it.
Three key questions to ask yourself and your testers are:
– Do I feel like the time I spent on the app was beneficial?
– Do I feel like I am more in control after using it?
– Do I feel confident returning to the app for updates?
In healthcare, getting people to take their health more seriously is a challenge in itself. Remember that the way a person feels during and after using your app is a big indicator of whether they will make use of it.
If you can invoke positive emotions through the experience you create, then your app is more likely to succeed, both in adoption and better health for your users.
Want to read more? Here are 3 great resources:
Designing Healthcare Apps with Delight
3 Things you Should know before building a Healthcare App
Why UX is critical to success in Healthcare Apps
