Foundations
Designing for digital health - what you need to know.
The core topics for designing in digital health, written for anyone interested in the field - covering the landscape of digital health products, accessibility law, clinical interfaces, and research with real patients.
Start here
What is digital health design
The landscape of digital health products, who uses them, and why designing for healthcare is fundamentally different from general product design.
Clinical vs Patient Interfaces
The same health data reaches a clinician and a patient through two different screens with different jobs. What each needs, and why the timing of access changes the design problem.
Health Literacy & Plain Language
People often read health information while stressed, unwell or waiting for news. What health literacy means, why recall is fragile, and how plain language, teach-back and clear numbers help.
Trust, Ethics & Safety
Why interface design counts as a patient-safety matter: where errors come from, how privacy, consent and persuasive design fit in, and who is accountable.
Design for Vulnerable Users
People reach health services when they are unwell, stressed, unsupported or unfamiliar with the technology. Designing for that edge, not the average, shapes the whole service.
Accessibility & Regulation
Health services depend on people being able to use them. WCAG is the technical benchmark most rules point to, but the version and the legal force differ by region.
UX Patterns for Health
Reusable, tested answers to recurring screen problems, and why they matter when the person using them is unwell, worried or interrupted.
Data Visualisation & Health Metrics
The same blood pressure or lab reading reaches a busy clinician and a worried patient. What each reader needs from the chart, the range, the colour and the alert differs.
Process & Research
Testing with real patients and clinicians, not colleagues or stakeholders: who to involve, how recruitment and consent work, how ethics review differs between the UK and Australia, and how to report small studies honestly.
Putting it together: a map of digital health design
How the eight topic articles fit together, where they meet, and where to start for a given task: new to the field, building a product, or auditing accessibility.