What a doctor’s visit gone wrong can teach you about product design
Earlier this week, I went to the doctor’s office. What should have been an in and out consultation for seasonal allergies turned into a two hour mess of misdiagnoses, desperate attempts to prescribe the problem away, and profuse apologies that came too late for errors that could have been avoided.
By the time I left, I was emotionally exhausted: just about everything about the visit had gone wrong, and I vowed I would never return.
On my way home I made note of the doctor’s costly missteps. It occurred to me that many of the mistakes I’d seen that day were surprisingly familiar — or at least, their effect on me was. My problem hadn’t been solved, and I had a nagging suspicion the doctor had never understood my symptoms to begin with. It was the same combination of dissatisfaction and distrust I feel when I turn to an app for a specific solution and it fails to deliver the right experience.
I wrote down everything that had gone wrong at the doctor’s office and its analogue in the product world. The lessons spanned both realms.
The key thread to remember? A good experience starts with empathy.
Common pitfalls to avoid when designing your product, and other lessons learned from a doctor’s visit gone wrong:
1. MAKING PEOPLE WAIT. See also: FORGETTING THEY EXIST; REMEMBERING THEY EXIST BUT NEGLECTING TO KEEP THEM IN THE LOOP.
At the doctor’s office, you wait to check in. You wait to see the nurse for your vitals. You wait for the nurse to bring the doctor. You wait for them to consult on whatever next steps there may be. You typically don’t know how long you’ll be waiting, but you really truly hope it won’t be for very long.
In app, the story is the same: your users have to wait for information to load, wait for actions to be completed, wait for the results of those actions to appear, and the list goes on. The spinning beach ball of death is the digital version of sitting in an exam room twiddling your thumbs, with no end in sight. You have no sense of when you will find respite.
How you handle that wait time can make all the difference in user (and patient!) satisfaction. Don’t leave them sitting alone to dwell on it. Whenever possible, tell users how long their action will take to complete. Show a visual progress bar, give a time estimate, send an email on delivery or a text on completion if necessary. Just don’t leave them hanging and waiting for something outside of their control.
2. MAKING THEM FEEL LOST, SMALL, DUMB, OR INSIGNIFICANT.
Your user knew what she was coming to your app for, just like I had a very specific reason to go to the doctor’s office. But too many clicks to get to the right page and you leave your user lost and exhausted. Make sure they know where they are in the process, how to go back if they lose their place, and how to move forward when they’re ready.
If there’s an action they need to take to level up (in app: upgrading for premium features; in person: getting a referral for a specialist), tell them so! Don’t leave them unclear of next steps. Knowing where you are in the world or app is comforting: equip them with a progress bar and a roadmap.
Don’t be shy about offering extra guidance, either: screen flows that strike you as painfully easy to navigate may be painfully frustrating for your users. If they can’t find a button or make a purchase, it’s your fault, not theirs. Have some comforting error messaging and tutorial help to ease the pain and help them reach their goals.
3. THROWING TOO MANY OPTIONS AT THEM.
The world is filled with options: the point is not to provide more, but to winnow those down intelligently and prioritize the options that matter the most instead.
I went to the doctor feeling sluggish and sniffly and thinking I might have allergies. She offered an ENT referral, an allergist referral, an allergy exam (no allergist necessary), a sleep exam (in case it was sleep apnea), a strep test (because why not?), and Vicodin for my sore throat, or Advil if I preferred.
The range in recommendations did not inspire confidence. On the contrary, they made me highly skeptical that any of those recommendations would be effective.
In product, make recommendations that are relevant to the user. Get to know your users’ preferences (ask them if your data isn’t providing a strong enough signal), and personalize their results, prioritizing them as you go.
More is not better. Right is better.
4. DIAGNOSING THE WRONG SYMPTOM. AKA, FIXING THE WRONG PROBLEM, MAKING ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT WHAT YOUR USER WANTS
If a patient comes in about allergies, don’t send them home with reading material on birth control.
When you ignore the context of someone’s visit and focus on the wrong output, you undermine your own authority. Get back to basics and solve the pain point your user comes to you for.
Only once you’ve solved it can you think about upselling; you have to prove your value first. Otherwise your solutions are irrelevant; if a user thinks they’re smarter then you they’ll stop using you.
Instead, design your product with this question in mind: How will my app make people feel?
People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. — Maya Angelou
START BY BEING NICE…
In two hours, the doctor never greeted me by name – she never even asked what it was. “M’am” got plenty of attention that day, but I, unique snowflake Ximena, did not. The problem? With zero rapport, healthy skepticism crowds out any benefit of the doubt. It was obvious I could have been any patient.
A good bedside manner goes a long way, in person and in app: don’t be impersonal. You don’t need to come up with unique nicknames for your users, but do call your users by name. People love hearing their own names. Start with that.
… ESPECIALLY IF YOUR PRODUCT IS USED IN STRESSFUL SITUATIONS.
Be kind in your design, particularly if you know your app will be used in stressful situations
Why is going to the doctor’s office so stressful? If you’re there, chances are you’re not operating at 100%. Stress is high, willpower low, and time is treasured.
If your app is meant to be used when your user is in a pickle, you have to work twice as hard to be kind and efficient. Clean up your error pages so they’re lightweight and humorous to cut the tension. Help them cut corners and get to the crux of the issue without jumping through hoops: if they have to fill out a form and they’ll likely be in a rush, let them fill in non-crucial information later. Pre-fill what you. If someone is placing a rush order, offer to save their credit card and delivery info for the next time they’re in a rush.
LASTLY: CHECK YOURSELF.
How do you make sure your app is kind and human-centered? Name your app. Give it a personality. Think of it as a person with a heart that beats and a brain that gets bored, tired, excited, and intrigued. How will it respond to a stressful situation? Who is it talking to and how should it behave in their presence? What does it mean to be polite in that context? If you can answer those questions, you can design your app with the right personality in mind. Give your app a persona – not just your users.
Is this thought process weird? Totally. Is it worth it so your users don’t leave your app feeling unhappy? Absolutely.
When you break trust, don’t deliver value, and sour someone’s mood, they won’t be back — that counts whether you’re an app or a clinic. Start with empathy, and go forth from there.
