The rise of digital health apps empowers patients, clinicians, and researchers alike. These apps bring the ability to monitor and manage health to the devices we use every day, with offerings ranging from virtual doctor visits to personal diet management. COVID-19 caused a sharp increase in the development of new digital health apps, with an average of 250 apps added per day in 2020. Today, there are over 350,000 mobile and web health applications, but let’s be real: do all of those apps actually contribute to better health outcomes?
To make an impact, the functionality of these apps needs to be as productive as the services they offer. Outdated code, slow performance, and unmet quality development expectations are just a few issues that can turn an innovative idea into just another app to be cleared off user’s home screens.
That’s where MindSea comes in: our Digital Health Check exists to fix these problems, optimizing your digital health app to make a genuine impact by evaluating key aspects of its functionality.
The fundamentals: Start with code and technology
A faulty code base can make or break your app’s success, regardless of how solid your concept is. Our team starts with basic but often-overlooked functionality checks, like determining if existing code supports new development, or if unused “dead code” is impacting app performance.
The rise of digital health apps inherently comes with patient privacy concerns, so data protection needs to be a top priority for your app. It’s of the utmost importance that new users feel that their information is secure, especially with patient populations unfamiliar with using technology as a part of their personal health care journey.
Our experienced team will start by conducting a detailed review of these aspects, as well as app store guideline adherence, server implementation, and more.
The experience: Emphasize the user in your design
Digital health apps must adhere to justly high standards, given the effect that they can have on the mental and physical health of patients. At MindSea, we use human-centered design to ensure empathy and efficiency are emphasized in the development process.
We advocate for creating an in-depth blueprint during development to ensure that the app’s framework safely and securely serves all potential patients, which includes our essential 5-step user testing stage to best identify the app’s purpose for all stakeholders involved.
Maybe the development of your app was intended to incorporate these inclusivity factors, but quality issues with the original development team affected their actual implementation. We address these concerns using industry-leading design review methodologies to establish the full scope of user experience issues, determine adherence to accessibility standards, and verify whether the app’s features actually allow users to complete goals or tasks. Ensuring ease of use and practicality is the best way to make sure your user base will be satisfied with your app’s service.
Let’s get started!
Once your Digital Health Check is complete, you’ll have all the tools necessary to reintroduce your app to the world—including multiple different quality reports, cost estimates, and actionable recommendations for next steps. If you like, we’ll even put together a team to implement those changes.
Are you ready to get started? Request a meeting today.
