Doctors don’t need polished interfaces.
This is something one of our team members heard in a meeting recently.
While we’re willing to hear differing opinions on how to approach application and website development, this is one statement that we simply don’t agree with. We discussed this topic at length on an episode of The Health Connective Show with our senior front-end developer Katie Fullmer and our COO Justin Bantuelle.
Katie and Justin shared that there are several ways in which doctors (and all users of your website/application) benefit from streamlined, polished experiences.
Polished Interfaces Drive Brand Loyalty
Believe it or not, the experience on your website or application can determine whether or not a customer remains loyal to your company. And design plays a large role in customer experience.
Good design encompasses not only the look and feel of a website or dashboard, but also the functionality, responsiveness, speed, and other qualities that can impact the customer experience. The right design can make it easier for customers to accomplish necessary tasks by making it easier to find things, eliminating steps, making sure things load quickly, etc.
This, in turn, can really impact customer loyalty. In the book Friction by Robert Dooley, he states that “9% of customers who had low effort experiences reported being disloyal, while 96% of customers who had high effort experiences reported being disloyal.” Furthermore, “94% of low effort customers repurchase and 88% of low effort customers increase their spend.”
When you don’t meet users’ expectations in terms of what they are looking for from your website or application, you won’t see as much loyalty to your product in the long-term. If you don’t address it, your user base may gradually fall off.
Poor Design Increases Customer Friction
While good design can foster loyalty, poor design can create the type of friction that drives disloyalty.
One consequence of poor design is that customers might not get the functionality they expect from your website. While you may not be able to provide everything every customer could possibly want from the beginning, paying attention to user behavior and soliciting customer feedback can help to inform future iterations. If customers know that you are invested in continuing to improve your product, they are more likely to remain loyal.
Another potential consequence of poor design is that your website or dashboard may actually create more work for your customers. While the ultimate goal is to improve patient outcomes, doctors are not going to be happy about using a device that adds more work to an already-busy day.
As Justin noted in the episode,
If you tell them that this device is going to massively improve the patient outcome, you’re going to have their interest. But if you make it so difficult that they don’t feel like you’re saving them time, they don’t feel like you’re necessarily actually improving the patient outcome just because it’s harder to use.
In the case of medical devices, they may be harder to quickly move away from due to the expense of purchasing the device, but over time, physicians may begin to consider alternatives.
Interface Design Can Impact Efficiency
Good interface design can positively impact efficiency for users. In the episode, Katie shared some of the things she has done for medtech dashboards and websites on the design side that are meant to make things easier on physicians:
Displaying the data in a way that is easy to visualize via different charts and graphs that include the data physicians are most interested in.
Adding tooltips to provide guidance on the data being displayed so that users can quickly understand what is being shown in the graphs and where the data is coming from.
Providing the ability to filter down to the data the customer wants to see rather than displaying static charts. Often, users will want to drill down to something specific, rather than seeing all of the data. Without filtering capabilities, that isn’t possible.
Optimizing elements of the interface so that they do not negatively impact load times. Physicians want to be able to see the data they need, but without careful planning, you can end up with a dashboard that loads very slowly. Even if you have all of the functionality your customers want, slow load times will be irritating.
All of these elements fall within the purview of design and front end development, and all of them can significantly impact the efficiency of using your product.
The Case for Polished Interfaces
A “polished interface” is more than just a dashboard or a website that is nice to look at.
Design goes beyond just the look and feel of your product. It encompasses the functionality as well.
This is why we feel that design is such an important element of the development process. Not investing in design can impact adoption and customer loyalty because physicians need tools that add efficiency, rather than making their jobs harder. If there are better alternatives out there, frustrated customers will eventually seek them out.
In a market where innovation is happening rapidly and new competitors are coming in, you can’t afford not to invest in this key component of interface development.
Michael spends a great deal of time with the healthcare industry both professionally and personally, which gives him the perspective of what stakeholders on either side of the care equation need.
He began coding in 2008 and subsequently shifted his attention entirely to online marketing. Michael completed his MBA in 2018, focusing on the intersection of healthcare and marketing.
As the marketing manager, Ashley ensures that our clients’ marketing strategies are put into action. This includes content writing, SEO, online advertising, analytics, and interfacing with the tools, systems, and team members needed to help our clients accomplish their marketing goals.
