With the healthcare industry experiencing such rapid change, it is more important than ever to design products based on the end user’s needs. Anything can be a product. From tangible objects like shoes or cars to intangible ones like websites and software. A successful launch of any product depends on knowing your customers and having a strong strategy to reach them. Ixlayer’s Chief Product Officer David Yu, a product management veteran with 25 years of experience, knows this all too well.
He has used technology, data, and great design to deliver innovative user experiences at Stitcher, Helix, and One Kings Lane. David brings his knowledge and expertise to ixlayer, bringing his knowledge and experience to a sector that views everyone in the world as potential customers who can benefit from well-designed products.
In this interview, we get David’s unique perspective on health-tech products, user interfaces, and where we go from here.
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Which aspect of the rapidly evolving health tech landscape excites you the most?
Health-tech products have become increasingly consumerized in the last couple of years, which excites me. Social media and e-commerce are no longer the only platforms utilizing user-centered design. In the last few years, I have seen and used great digital health products designed by “digital native” product developers that were focused on patient engagement and digital therapeutics. Customers now expect frictionless user experiences and intuitive user interfaces.
Have you noticed any changes since the COVID-19 pandemic?
Digital healthcare experiences have become more prevalent since COVID-19. The pandemic most likely accelerated the adoption of telemedicine, e-prescribing, at-home testing, and digital therapeutics by over a decade. The future of these changes after COVID diminishes remains to be seen, but right now it’s a very exciting field to be involved in. In the near future, we will have a unique opportunity to experiment with these new products at scale and prove their value to health systems and patients.
Could you please explain population-scale testing in a few words for those that may not be familiar?
In population scale testing, we collect data from a wide range of participants so that we can better understand health impacts across populations or confirm correlations between health conditions and certain outcomes.
What changes have you seen in population scale testing since you were at Helix?
Since my days at Helix, there have been more novel tests developed, but COVID has seen the greatest change in terms of the sheer volume of tests conducted. Thousands of dollars have been invested to help ensure our safety and wellbeing, and testing is now part of our daily lives. The government, schools and private businesses recognize the importance and benefits of population scale testing and how to leverage the data it generates.
MLB and Gilt, two major brands that are hyper-focused on the consumer experience, have both been your previous employers. How has web design and the Internet contributed to a better experience for consumers?
Any product we build is ultimately for those who will use it. Designing products is about establishing deep user empathy and creating products that are not only usable but also delightful to use. The most popular products/apps that we interact with on a daily basis have established so many UX design patterns over the last few decades.
In the health space, we have become less tolerant of “bad” UX design over the last few years, rather than discussing good design. Have you ever wondered why you had to enter your insurance information yet again, just because you walked to another pharmacy down the street, or why a patient intake form has to be filled out each time you go to the doctor? Imagine a world in which ordering a new phone charger on Amazon would be as easy as getting a cholesterol test.
What can the health industry learn from these lessons?
A good user experience is a good user experience regardless of whether it’s for a travel booking app or for scheduling your next doctor’s appointment. Every day, we interact with great design patterns that have been established across industries. Ixlayer may design a new enrollment flow for a patient or a new admin interface. As long as the end user is at the center, we follow the same design principles.
As we look ahead to 2022, what are the most important innovations we should keep in mind?
In 2022, I believe it’s less about the speed of innovation and more about keeping the incredible momentum going for health-tech adoption. As a result of COVID, we now have unprecedented accessibility to new products with troves of data that change the way we manage our own health and engage in various healthcare services. ixlayer’s platform offers patients, providers, retailers, and other organizations the opportunity to access and interact with health testing in a new way.
Within the next 10 years, how will healthcare look?
No crystal ball for me, but my personal hope is that healthcare in the next decade will be affordable, universally accessible, outcome-based, and empower patients.