Talking to users is the most valuable research tool in any UX (user experience) designer’s toolbox. It’s imperative for any product team to prioritize this effort, and at Healio, we’ve done just that.

Within our product team, we have a passionate team of UX designers who work hard to solve problems for our audience of health care professionals. Whether it’s a new product or an update to an existing one, our designers work hard to balance the goals of our users with the requirements of our business. This balancing act is not always an easy task, but one made easier by talking directly to users.

During early product design phases, there are many features brainstormed on our white boards — no bad ideas, anything goes. And though it’s easy to get excited about new features and functionality, our UX designers are adept at keeping conversations focused on our users.

Our team recently worked through iterations of the newly launched Clinical Guidance, a free point-of-care resource providing the health care community with unlimited modules on topics that provide layered clinical overview, treatment, and diagnosis information. During the design process, it was impossible to know with any certainty that what we were designing was indeed solving the right problems for our users — until we talked to them.

If you’re an UX designer, you are likely familiar with Jakob Nielsen and his claim that conducting a qualitative test of a website with 5 people will reveal 85% of the problems with the design. Qualitative feedback is invaluable in product design.

To get this type of feedback for Clinical Guidance, we invited health care professionals to participate in moderated usability testing sessions during different stages of the design process.

Any researcher can tell you how challenging it can be to manage the logistics of interview scheduling. Often the biggest problem is a low response rate — this is no different with usability testing.

Our solution to this common problem was the creation of the Healio research panel. Over the past year, 2,700 Healio website users volunteered to join our research panel to help continue to make Healio the best it can be through not only providing us feedback, but also participating in usability tests of products before they launch.

In our moderated sessions, research panel participants have the opportunity to give feedback on products we develop for them. In turn, we can validate our product designs are intuitive, easy to use, and will improve their lives. The result? Products that help our users, and our business.

To learn more about Clinical Guidance, click here. If you’re a health care professional interested in joining our research panel, email Sarah Caputo, product research manager, at [email protected]. And, if you’d like to learn more about the UX process, feel free to contact me at [email protected].

Reference:

• Budiu, Raluca. (2021, July 11). Why 5 Participants Are Okay in a Qualitative Study, but Not in a Quantitative One. NN/g Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/5-test-users-qual-quant/.

Jennifer joined the Wyanoke Group in 2002 and held the position of UX Manager at Healio prior to being named Vice President, Product in 2021. In her spare time, Jennifer enjoys spending time with her family — preferably on the beach with a good book.