The future of healthcare UX lies in the past
There were many things to be excited about at the annual Health 2.0 conference in Santa Clara. From serious talks on social health issues by Vice Admiral Vivek H. Murthy and Chelsea Clinton to the occasionally off-color but always humorous commentary by Matthew Holt on the state of the industry. But the thing that most stuck with me afterward was the fact that the predominant user interface design trend in digital health is straight out of the 1980s. For once, that is a very good thing.
Invoking 80's design probably summons up the idea of green screen systems from HMOs or 8-bit color displays (16-bit if you were lucky enough to have a Tandy 1000) but what I am talking about is the now ubiquitous text message. As it turns out, almost all the mobile health solutions presented at Health 2.0 adopted the standard text messaging interface instead of popular responsive formats like Google Material Design or Bootstrap that are so prevelant in the tech sector. I think this is a decision that will pay dividends in the adoption of these solutions.
The core paradox of innovating in interface design is that one is trying to do something new and better and yet that new and better thing must be intuitive enough that it requires the minimal amount of training. Everyone loves interfaces with bells and whistles until they sit down and try to use the interface. Suddenly, those fancy features reveal themselves for what they truly are… gremlins out to confuse and frustrate you. There is no question that users love to use beautiful interfaces, but beauty is a distant second to utility.
The magic of leveraging the text message interface is threefold. A significant portion of the planet is already familiar with the paradigm. It can be delivered on nearly any platform, including the flip phones prefered by many devout “non-smartphone” users. Finally, it evokes a conversational tone that, when used properly, can bring a sense of connection and even empathy to the experience. Of course, having an interface isn’t enough. The text messaging platform simplifies a user’s learning curve but this is only good if users can still achieve meaningful outcomes. The good news here is that we don’t have to rely on the SMS platforms for a guide.
New platforms like HipChat and Slack have just begun to tread new ground in automation, communication, and interactivity. Slack has been identified fastest growing business software ever and with slick integration that allows bi-directional communication with other APIs, the power to leverage other systems within the interface is well established. Healthcare software has typically lagged 15 to 20 years behind the industry. Adoption of this kind of interface with interoperable plug-ins may offer hope of bridging that gap by at least a decade.
