How do UI Designers Contribute More to Healthcare App Success?

Are you obsessed with healthcare app developers? Well, ask them can they code the app without the app design? They would look at you with narrowed eyes! 

UI/UX design of your healthcare app works as the strong foundation on which developers build a robust mobile app. And don’t forget … users see the design first, not the code! 

Our in-house healthcare app designers are here sharing healthcare app UI/UX basic and advanced practice to help all - beyond our client base. 

But first, you must know … 

Why without workflows and documentation, a good UI is impossible? 

One thing we learnt even before starting a healthcare-focused IT company was that an epic mobile app is the outcome of the perfectly executed process - not the task. 

In technical terms, we call that process a software/app development lifecycle which includes several important phases such as discovery, workflows, documentation, UI/UX, prototype, development, testing, piloting and market launch. 

So, if you skip the 2nd and 3rd phase of the lifecycle and directly design the healthcare app UI/UX, you would most likely end up designing the app UI/UX which confuses the users and unnecessarily lengthens the user journey. 

In this sense, workflows and documentation help designers to understand how each element of the UI is connected to app purpose and how they have to design the UI that drives the user journey in an engaging way. 

If you are wondering, workflows define how users enter the app, interact with each feature of the app, satisfy their intent and leave the app. This is also called user journey or user flow.

There are several different user journeys for almost all healthcare apps for different user groups and different user intents. 

And in the documentation phase, you are supposed to document everything from feature sets to different user journeys to let designers visualize the end result and come up with design and UX ideas to accomplish the visualized result.

Here, it is worth mentioning that designers never directly start designing the UI/UX of your healthcare app. They first prepare a wireframe that is nothing but the visual guide representing the skeletal framework of an app.  

Following is the wireframe of a telemedicine app our UI/UX designers roughly prepared for your better understanding. 

Roles of healthcare app designers beyond designing the UI

Being unaware of the fact that healthcare app designers have responsibilities beyond just designing the app, most healthcare entrepreneurs planning to build a healthcare app hire healthcare app designers with an only aim to design the UI of the mobile app. 

Because of their unawareness, they cannot leverage healthcare app designers to their full potential and get ROI much lesser than expected. 

So, learn the actual responsibilities of healthcare app designers before hiring them. 

• Work with a business development team to define the workflows or user journeys based on user groups, user intent and user characteristics 
• Create the user experience strategy to ensure all interactions of users with the mobile app are engaging 
• Create storyboards to conceptualize designs 
• Run surveys and gather users’ feedback on ease of use 
• Conduct testing with real people to find pain areas and optimize the design 
• Create original graphic designs (e.g. images, sketches and tables) 

Our other useful resources:

• Start eldercare startup
• Build website for pharmacy
• Healthcare web app vs website
• Hire virtual CTO for medtech startup

We’ve designed 17 healthcare apps with these healthcare app UI best practices since the pandemic 

We follow the entire app development lifecycle, which is the major reason we always deliver success to our clients. 

Talking about our healthcare app designers, they acknowledge the fact that they are the major pillar of app success. If they don't put 100% of their designing skills to good use, even a great healthcare app idea would fail to leave a positive impact on users. 

With these following healthcare UI/UX best practices, we have impactfully designed 17 healthcare apps since the first lockdown in Canada. 

• Select app theme colour based on healthcare app types 

Colours are the first thing users notice. To engage users, it is crucial to match the app colour with the healthcare app type. 

But in general, blue is the most used colour in healthcare app themes as the blue colour represents calmness, peace, and good health. 

For the same reason, we have selected a colour with a bluish tone in our white-label telemedicine solution. 

More specifically, 

Use green colour for the diet-related apps 

Use pink colour for women wellness apps 

Use red colour for medication-related apps

• Keep text large and clear 

Aim to convey messages to users in the easiest way possible as users are most likely to use your app when they are going through physical and mental health complications. 

Don’t use stylish fonts. A simple font looks more clear and pleasant. See the following UI example in which every text is clearly readable. 

To enhance the readability, you can consider adding relevant vector images along with each text. 

For instance, if there is text ‘injection’, adding a vector image of injection conveys the message in a faster and easier way to users. 

• Home screen should offer a more personalized experience to users 

When someone greets you with your name rather than calling you ‘Hey Man’, you feel more attached to him! This is the result of a personalized experience. 

Apply the same philosophy in your healthcare app design. Make your users feel special by greeting them with their name, by showing all important information in a well-organized manner - all on the home screen. 

See the following example of the Medeo virtual care app to understand the concept of personalization. 

• Keep it clean, don’t clog it up 

A normal user would prefer to spend more time on a clean app screen rather than an app screen with lots of content and images. 

A clogged-up app screen not only irritates the user to find the thing he is looking for but also gives him the reason to close the app. 

See the difference between the following two app screens and decide by yourself! 

Why should you always hire UI designers for healthcare apps who have healthcare industry knowledge? 

Healthcare is a complicated industry with different users, their ever-evolving clinical requirements, their unique persona and their intentions which can be around life and death! 

Thus, not all designers are able to design the UI/UX of the healthcare app in such a manner that addresses every requirement of these users in the best possible way. 

For instance, a designer having expertise in the healthcare industry knows the importance of keeping fonts large, selecting theme colour based on app type and keeping user journeys short. 

Because, in other industries, designers generally give cold shoulder to all these aspects of app UI/UX design which are exclusive to the healthcare industry only! 

If we were at your place, we would have asked these questions before hiring healthcare UI/UX designers 

• Are you aware of the healthcare app market, top healthcare mobile apps and their UI/UX strategy? 
• Are you aware of the characteristics or persona of Canadian or North American users?
• Have you ever designed a healthcare app for the North American market? 
• Are you able to design minimalist UI?  
• Are you comfortable with defining user journeys and drafting workflows? 
• Are you able to improve the user experience without changing the interface? 
• Are you able to design the icon, images and other UI elements from scratch? 
• Are you able to implement the science of colours? 
• Are you able to prepare a UX strategy that converts a good design into a good customer experience? 
• Are you able to design the UI that fits all sizes of mobile devices?
• Will you test the design on real people to identify user pain areas in terms of ease of use and engagement?  

Let’s end this blog with a quote that always inspires our healthcare app designers!