In healthcare, meaningful UX isn’t just about smoother interactions or cleaner interfaces … it can be the difference between confusion and clarity, frustration and trust, delay and timely care. When the experience is better, it closes the gap between provider and patient. It fosters understanding, encourages follow-through, and builds confidence in the care being delivered.

Too often, that connection breaks down. Patients leave appointments unsure of what to do next. Clinicians battle clunky interfaces while juggling critical decisions. Family members try to navigate complex portals during moments of stress. These aren’t just user pain points … they’re human ones. And when you’re dealing with health, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

This is why great UX in healthcare isn’t just nice to have. It’s essential and can change a life.

The Reality of Healthcare UX

Healthcare is notoriously behind when it comes to user experience and design. Systems are often optimized for billing and compliance, not for the people actually using them. Outdated legacy tools persist because change is costly and slow … and frankly handcuffed by a few large software orgs. And between HIPAA regulations, bureaucratic red tape, and fragmented workflows, usability often takes a backseat to “just make it work.”

Clinicians are expected to use software that actively gets in their way. Nurses spend hours clicking through redundant EHR screens. Doctors fight with interfaces that feel more like obstacle courses than tools. Meanwhile, patients struggle to find basic information … their lab results, prescriptions, or even how to message their provider.

It’s not just inefficient, it can be dangerous.

Common UX Failures in Healthcare

The list is long, but a few problems show up over and over:

• Poor navigation and information architecture: Even tech-savvy users can get lost in patient portals and EHRs.
• Overwhelming cognitive load: Alert fatigue is real. Clinicians get so many warnings and notifications that they start ignoring them … and occasionally miss the ones that matter.
• Non-intuitive medical devices: Inconsistent layouts, obscure buttons, and unclear labeling can all lead to misuse.
• Fragmented experiences: Patients must jump between systems for billing, appointments, prescriptions, and test results … each with a different login, layout, and logic.

All of these design failures cost time, energy, and sometimes much more than that.

Where UX Can Make a Life-or-Death Difference

There are moments in healthcare where good design can have immediate, tangible effects on safety and outcomes:

• Emergency department triage systems that guide providers to the right decision quickly
• Medication administration interfaces that prevent dosage errors
• Diagnostic tools that surface the right information clearly, without clutter
• Discharge summaries and instructions that patients can actually understand and follow

These aren’t edge cases … they’re everyday interactions. Every one of them presents a chance to design for clarity, for trust, and for better health outcomes.

The Designer’s Role in Changing This

Designers working in healthcare aren’t just pixel pushers. We’re advocates, translators, simplifiers, and occasionally, disruptors.

To do this well, we need to get close to the problem. That means shadowing nurses during rounds, interviewing patients post-surgery, testing prototypes in real clinical settings … not just in labs or focus groups. It means designing within regulatory frameworks, but not being constrained by them. You must constantly balance technical feasibility, clinical impact, and emotional clarity.

Accessibility isn’t optional and neither is humility. Healthcare UX demands both.

My Perspective

In my own work, I’ve seen how even small improvements can make a real difference. Clearer labeling, shorter flows, and better error handling. In one case, we restructured a form that clinicians were using dozens of times per day. It didn’t just save time … it reduced mistakes and improved the quality of documentation, which helped downstream care.

But I’ve also seen the barriers ... Budget constraints, massive resistance to change, and misaligned incentives. It’s not easy to fix healthcare from a design seat … but it is possible to improve it, piece by piece.

Final Thought: The Ethical Responsibility

When we design for healthcare, we’re designing for people at their most vulnerable. They are in pain, under stress, trying to navigate a system that often feels indifferent. It’s a space where empathy has to be built into every interaction, and where “good enough” often isn’t and frankly shouldn’t be.

We don’t always get the luxury of perfect solutions. But we do get the opportunity and the responsibility … to push for better.

Because in this field, UX doesn’t just improve lives.

It can change them.

I'd love to hear about your thoughts, connect with me on LinkedIn and let's chat.

Until the next volume, thanks for joining me. 
- Andrew Preble