Healthcare User Research Services
Does your digital health team need ongoing user research to improve your software, applications, and websites? Our small agency builds and manages recurring user research programs for enterprise and mid-size companies.
We have helped a wide range of health and medical organizations, including major health systems (Banner, UVA Health, Mount Sinai), health research organizations (NIH, Gates Foundation), public health data platforms, pharma companies, and clinical trial organizations.
Ongoing User Research Programs in Healthcare
We specialize in multi-year user research programs for product and UX teams. From personas to usability testing to card sorts, we draw from a diverse toolkit to help your team understand your users and build better digital health products.
We have led research with a wide range of health audiences, including doctors and HCPs, patients and caregivers, trial participants, public health leaders, and health researchers.
Case Study:
How Banner Health Reached Consensus on Design Decisions with Recurring Research
Challenge
A division of this 50,000-employee organization was struggling to align on design directions and digital priorities.
Approach
We built a program of recurring user research that created a shared understanding of users and their pain points.
Result
Our collaborative approach helped the organization reach alignment on digital initiatives and design directions.
One-Time User Research Studies in Healthcare
We lead a small number of standalone user research studies in the health/medical space. These projects often include multiple rounds of qualitative research and/or a mix of qual/quant methods.
Within healthcare, our focus is on digital health products such as software, enterprise applications, mobile apps, and websites. Our toolkit includes discovery research methods (user interviews, personas, journey maps, concept/MVP testing) and UX research methods (usability testing, content testing, card sorts).
“The facilitation was great. Awesome to think about problems this way.”
Recent Health & Medical User Research Projects
NIH — Mixed Methods User Research
Large-scale project to understand attitudes and motivations among Black and Latinx populations for joining a health study. Multiple rounds of qualitative UX testing on prototypes, with iterative design improvements throughout. Plus large-scale quantitative UX testing. Learn more: Increasing Minority Participation in Health Studies: A UX Research Study for NIH.
Satcher Health — In-Depth Interviews
In 2022, a year after launching its health equity data platform, the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine needed to prioritize UX initiatives. Marketade led 13 in-depth interviews that helped the team create 4 personas and prioritize top opportunities. Learn more: Improving Satcher’s Health Equity Tracker with UX Research.
Top Pharma Company — UX Audits
4 UX audits for a top 20 global pharma company, in partnership with a large U.S. ad agency. Used human factors evaluation methods for 2 consumer websites and 2 professional sites — supplemented with analytics and session replay data. Prioritized 100+ recommendations. Learn more: No UX Testing Allowed: Improving Pharmaceutical Websites with a Human Factors Heuristic Evaluation.
UVA Health System — UX Testing & Survey
2 studies for this major health system with the #1 hospital in Virginia: 1) mobile/desktop usability testing of their primary site for patients and caregivers, supplemented with a website survey; 2) content testing and navigation testing of UVA’s Cancer Center site. Learn more: How a Website Survey Gave UVA Health Actionable UX Insights.
March of Dimes — Journey Mapping
Collaborative journey mapping to improve maternity care for women with low access to healthcare. In-depth interviews with pregnant women and new mothers — followed by a 1-day workshop. Learn more: Helping March of Dimes Understand the Journeys of Women with Low Access to Maternity Care.
GoodRx — User Research Training
Usability testing training for product and design teams at GoodRx, the leading U.S. marketplace for affordable and convenient healthcare. Multiple rounds of remote research training. Topics included test planning, analysis, ideation, and reporting. Learn more: Helping GoodRx Scale UX Research Through Remote Training.
Emory / Signal Group — UX Testing
Usability testing to guide a redesign of platforms run by Emory University that visualize the impact of the HIV and viral hepatitis epidemics. Learn more: Improving Two Emory Public Health Platforms with Usability Testing.
Mount Sinai — App Usability Testing
Rapid usability testing of a new web app for cancer survivors developed by Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine. Remote testing with 10 cancer survivors and 6 caregivers prior to launch. Generated solutions for 30 UX problems uncovered during research. Learn more: Helping Mount Sinai Improve Cancer Patient Health Through Usability Testing.
Statespace — Product/Market Research
We ran strategic research to help a digital health team understand their target audience and opportunities to achieve product/market fit. We led a 150-person survey followed by 12 in-depth interviews and a persona generation workshop. Learn more: Helping Statespace Move Toward Product/Market Fit with Mixed Methods Research.
Gates Foundation — Message Research
Early in the pandemic, we partnered with Provoc and others to support a Gates Foundation study related to COVID-19 treatments. Our focus was creating and optimizing digital content based on in-depth user research.
Clinical Research Leader — Design Sprint
We led user research and an intensive 1-week design and innovation sprint with a team at a global leader in clinical trial solutions. The sprint initiated an overhaul of outdated tools and processes for assessing trial site feasibility. The team reimagined the entire experience by understanding the needs of site users and sponsors. Learn more: How a Design Sprint Helped a Team Reimagine its Clinical Site Application.
“I loved learning the end-to-end process. Learning how to draft questions based on desired outcomes was super helpful — as was learning to synthesize the findings.”
Why Healthcare Teams Pick Marketade
We’re small … and love big challenges.
As a nimble team, we’re a great fit for healthcare teams facing bureaucratic hurdles, regulations, or a slow-moving culture. While some agencies complain about these challenges, we embrace them. We adapt our process to meet your constraints and collaborate to find solutions or workarounds.
We drive alignment.
Health, medical and pharma organizations are among the most siloed. When teams lack alignment, research gets ignored by those who don’t like the conclusions, and fails to drive change. Our “team sport” approach brings a diverse group of stakeholders together to observe and analyze research. This process works wonders at building alignment on your biggest problems and opportunities.
We love complex products.
If you need research related to complex healthcare software or medical applications, you’ll be in good hands with our consultants. We roll up their sleeves every day to interview users and moderate UX testing of complex digital products. We also write research plans and recruit niche audiences for nearly every project we lead. You’ll benefit from all this experience throughout your project.