Designing digital patient experiences: The digital health design framework

Background: Digital health (DH) brings considerable benefits, but it comes with potential risks. Human Factors (HF) play a critical role in providing high-quality and acceptable DH solutions. Consultation with designers is crucial for reflecting on and improving current DH design practices. Objectives: We investigated the general DH design processes, challenges, and corresponding strategies that can improve the digital patient experience (PEx). Methods: A semi-structured interview study with 24 design professionals. All audio recordings were transcribed, deidentified, grammatically corrected, and imported into ATLAS.ti for data analysis. Three coders participated in data coding following the thematic analysis approach. Results: We identified eight DH design stages and grouped them into four phases: preparation, problem-thinking, problem-solving, and implementation. The analysis presented twelve design challenges associated with contextual, practical, managerial, and commercial aspects that can hinder the design process. We identified eight common strategies used by respondents to tackle these challenges. Conclusions: We propose a Digital Health Design (DHD) framework to improve the digital PEx. It provides an overview of design deliverables, activities, stakeholders, challenges, and corresponding strategies for each design stage.