AH107 - How Good UX/UI Design Transforms Healthcare, with Adam Murphy and Michelle Chambers

We’ve all come across a bad user experience: like when an app on our smartphone takes too many clicks to complete a simple task. But in those instances, a clunky interface leads largely to frustration or an abandoned shopping cart. Within the highly complex world of healthcare, the stakes are significantly higher.  

When users interact with health technology, they are often navigating intricate workflows under stressful circumstances. To dive into what goes on behind the scenes of user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design, and how Judi Health is working to create a positive experience overall, Justin Venneri brought Adam Murphy (Senior Director, Design) and Michelle Chambers (Director, UX/UI) into the Astonishing Healthcare studio.

Together, they explore how human-center design principles can help reduce cognitive load, improve accuracy, and create better overall outcomes for expert users and plan members alike.

Moving Beyond Aesthetics to Solve Complex Problems

A common misconception about UX/UI interface design is that it entirely revolves around aesthetics. While it’s true that a clean visual presentation matters, the true purpose of design in enterprise health technology is to solve a problem.

As Adam put it, “Design that doesn’t solve a problem is just modern art.”

For designers with traditional graphic design backgrounds, stepping into health tech also requires a shift in perspective. Michelle noted that adopting a human-centered design framework changes everything.

“When you begin to focus on the real life uses and how people actually interact with something, or their actual pain points in society, it naturally becomes something that's beautiful rather than the other way around, trying to focus on the beauty first," she said. "And it’s a really different way of thinking that completely shaped my career moving forward.”

The True Cost of Friction in Health Tech

In an app we may use day-to-day, a confusing menu is just a minor inconvenience. In healthcare, bad UX can be expensive and even sometimes dangerous.

Health technology platforms and apps process high-stakes tasks like clinical reviews for prior authorization requests. The healthcare providers on the other side of the screen handling these tasks are often operating under severe time constraints. A well-designed system can help a clinician find information quickly – like a patient’s age or their specific diagnosis - and faster decision making leads to a better member experience (in this example, a prior authorization getting approved in a timely manner.

Adam elaborated, "There's an old saying that design should be invisible, and it really boils down to that, like you mentioned, cognitive load. How much effort is a user putting into accomplishing their task? And when we talk about healthcare enterprise platform like Judi, it is high stakes.”

Why Accuracy Is a Core User Experience Problem

While accuracy is often thought about as a backend engineering challenge, it is deeply tied to UI. If a platform doesn’t give clear instructions, the user might inadvertently make the wrong choice.

Adam compares this to the concept of the Norman door. If you walk up to a door with a horizontal bar, you naturally assume you need to push it. If you the door actually requires you to pull, the design has failed you.

Similarly, if software lacks clear affordances and wayfinding, users don’t know what to do. This introduces frustration and drastically increases the possibility of human error.

Therefore, to prevent errors before they happen, design teams must make the right action the easiest one.

Streamlining High-Stakes Workflows

In workflows involving clinical decision support or eligibility and benefits, design choices matter. The Judi Health team focuses on reducing rework by resurfacing missing data before a user submits a form. They achieve this by using subtle flags rather than modal interruptions.

While a pop-up model could force a user to stop what they are doing and refocus their attention, thereby disrupting their workflow, gentle flags can indicate missing information. That approach to design guides the user toward accuracy without causing unecessary friction.

Tailoring the Experience for Different Audiences

Enterprise health platforms like Judi serve two very different audiences: expert users (who interact with the back end) and everyday plan members. Both groups require a unique design approach.

1. Expert Users: These individuals use the platform for hours every day. They need high efficiency, minimal friction, and quick access to complex clinical data. Design for these users prioritizes speed and cognitive ease.
2. Plan Members: These users experience the front-end interface via the member portal or app. They want to understand their copays, check their accumulations, and review their benefits. Because of that, the design must be modern, inviting, and easy to understand.

Whether a member is trying to find their maximum out-of-pocket limit or a clinician is trying to find information to complete a prior authorization, the core objective remains the same: the interface must help people find information quickly and accurately.

Building a Culture of Humble Design Professionals

Designing for such a complex industry requires a specific type of team culture. Because healthcare technology is intricate and highly regulated, it takes significant time for new designers to understand the space.

To maintain high standards, the Judi Health team operates under a guiding motto.

“The design team motto is "never perfect, always improving." And I think we try to live that out on a day to day basis. We're constantly looking at our processes, we're looking at our design system, we're looking at our design patterns and how they're implemented in the interfaces. Everybody's willing to pivot and adjust and say, you know what? That's not as good as it could be. Let's try harder. And I'm just so proud of everybody who adopts that mentality and helps us be more successful.” - Adam Murphy

Another team rule is to "be less clever." Designers can easily go overboard by adding too many steps or excessive interactivity. The team actively works to cut out the noise and improve the signal.

This mindset requires humility. Designers must be willing to self-reflect, accept feedback, and let go of preconceived notions to find the best possible solution for the user.

Navigating AI's Evolution in Healthcare

As we all know, AI’s rapid evolution over the last couple of years presents both massive opportunities and new user experience challenges.

The good news is that AI is already helping process data, inform decisions, handle call volumes, and standardize messaging. These advancements enabled operational cost reductions and streamlined interactions. However, it’s also understandable that not everyone trusts this technology.

While it's very exciting and signals the transition into a new technological era, we can't just dump AI on our users. It's got to be done with great intention and appropriate safeguards. And so all these things that we've talked about today, being very intentional about decisions, solving specific problems and not just throwing technology at a, at an industry, I think we can be successful with it and we can achieve amazing things with that additional technology. We just need to make sure that we're approaching it from the right direction and with the right perspective.

“While it's very exciting and signals the transition into a new technological era, we can't just dump AI on our users,” Adam explained. “It's got to be done with great intention and appropriate safeguards. And so, all these things that we've talked about today, being very intentional about decisions, solving specific problems and not just throwing technology at an industry, I think we can be successful with it, and we can achieve amazing things with that additional technology. We just need to make sure that we're approaching it from the right direction and with the right perspective.”

Moving Toward Frictionless Healthcare Software

Enterprise health technology, like Judi, can be very transformative. While the work may not always be flashy – as our founder CEO likes to say, we are the “plumbers” of healthcare – it produces results that have profound downstream effects.  

By focusing on human-centered design, removing friction points, and building trust through accuracy, design teams can make healthcare navigation faster and more accessible for everyone.

Click here if you would like to learn more about Judi and its next-generation capabilities.

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