Healthcare UX

Designing digital health products that are safe, accessible, and easy to use.

stellae.design

Emerging

Healthcare UX designs clinical systems, patient tools, medical devices, and health apps. Stakes are uniquely high: poor UX can cause medication errors, missed diagnoses, and patient harm. Operates under strict regulations (HIPAA, FDA) and must accommodate extreme user diversity — from tech-savvy doctors to elderly patients with low digital literacy.

Why It Matters

Healthcare UX operates in a domain where design decisions directly affect patient safety, treatment adherence, and clinical outcomes — a misread dosage, a confusing appointment flow, or an inaccessible patient portal can have life-altering consequences. The stakes are compounded by users who span the full spectrum of digital literacy, from tech-savvy young adults to elderly patients managing chronic conditions with limited vision and motor ability. Designing for healthcare also means navigating regulatory constraints like HIPAA, accessibility mandates, and clinical workflow requirements that do not exist in consumer product design.

Real-World Examples

MyChart patient portal

Epic's MyChart provides patients with a clear, task-oriented dashboard showing upcoming appointments, recent test results, and medication lists in plain language with large tap targets and high-contrast typography. The interface separates urgent actions like messaging a provider from informational content like viewing past visit summaries, preventing cognitive overload during stressful health moments. Accessibility features including screen reader compatibility and adjustable text sizes are built into the core experience rather than offered as an afterthought.

Pill reminder apps with simple interactions

Well-designed medication reminder apps like Medisafe use large, color-coded pill icons with one-tap confirmation to record doses, reducing the interaction to the absolute minimum required for adherence tracking. The apps send smart reminders that adapt to the user's typical response time and escalate alerts for missed critical medications. This simplicity is essential because many users interact with the app during moments of low energy, pain, or cognitive fatigue.

Counter-example

Clinical portal with consumer-app aesthetics

A telemedicine startup designs its clinician-facing portal with trendy minimalist aesthetics — thin light-grey text on white backgrounds, icon-only navigation without labels, and compact card layouts optimized for visual appeal. Physicians working twelve-hour shifts in fluorescent-lit rooms strain to read patient data, misidentify navigation options, and waste precious minutes hunting for clinical tools hidden behind abstract icons. Prioritizing visual trendiness over clinical usability puts patient care at risk.

Role-Specific Guidance

Common Mistakes

• The most critical mistake is applying consumer UX patterns to clinical contexts without considering the consequences of error — gamification, dark patterns, and friction-reducing shortcuts that work in e-commerce can be dangerous when applied to medication management or treatment decisions. Another common error is designing exclusively for the tech-savvy patient persona while ignoring elderly users, caregivers, and patients with disabilities who often have the greatest need for digital health tools. Teams also frequently underestimate the complexity of clinical workflows, designing idealized linear flows that do not account for the interruptions, multitasking, and time pressure that define real clinical environments.