Decoding the Human Element

How User Research Shapes Health Innovation

Imagine you're a master chef. You've spent months crafting the perfect dish, a combination of exotic flavors that will revolutionize the culinary world. You're about to present it to a room full of eager foodies. But wait, you skipped the taste tests, and now, as the first bites are taken, you realize the dish isn't resonating. Panic sets in. Your masterpiece isn't a hit because you didn't understand your audience's palate.

This common scenario - perfecting the product without truly understanding the user - is exactly what we see happening in healthcare. Companies are often so focused on the endgame that they forget who they're playing for. The rush to reach significant milestones like regulatory approval or market launch can overshadow the key process of user research.

Teams become so consumed by these critical goals that they overlook the profound importance of involving patients and clinicians early and continuously throughout product development. Instead of integrating user research as a core element from conception through post-launch, it's often relegated to the final stages. This is particularly concerning because by the time the product is nearly ready to hit the market, opportunities for meaningful and cost-effective iterations are vastly reduced.

The result: solutions that may be clinically sound but don't fully meet the nuanced needs of the end-users they aim to serve.

A new perspective is essential—one that places continuous user research at the heart of creating healthcare solutions. This ensures those who the products are meant to help have a voice in the process every step of the way. In this article, we'll show how user research is not just about ticking boxes, but about connecting deeply with patient needs and experiences.

The User Research Journey

User research steers products via formative insights early on and summative validation later.

1. In the formative stages, research focuses on discovery. Deep user interviews and observation provide fundamental insights into user challenges, current workarounds, and context. These learnings form the basis for solutions designed to map to real user needs.
2. As concepts develop into prototypes, formative research continues through usability testing. Researchers gather user feedback, especially around pain points, to enable iterative UX refinement grounded in user models and expectations.
3. In the final stages, research becomes more summative, validating product readiness. User journey mapping and testing communication strategies reveal potential adoption barriers. Feedback-driven tweaks maximize clarity and accessibility for the target audience.
4. Post-launch, research returns to a formative role, powering ongoing enhancement. Quantitative usage data and qualitative insights directly from users fuel innovation rooted in real-world experience.

Integrating both formative, exploratory and summative, evaluative research allows products to evolve aligned with user perspectives throughout the development journey. Prioritizing these human-centered learnings helps ensure solutions resonate powerfully with the lives they aim to improve.

User Research Vs. Market Research: What's the Real Deal?

Let’s differentiate user research from two common tactics—market research and advisory boards.

Market research analyzes demographics, competitors, trends—crucial for positioning.

Advisory boards offer valuable but limited perspectives. Unless well provisioned, they likely represent the industry more than your users.

User research gets personal with real users. It uncovers deep insights into their everyday reality and what they truly need. This nitty-gritty understanding is impossible to glean from surface-level research or semi-removed advisors. You need boots-on-the-ground user research to create products that fit seamlessly into your customers’ lives. No amount of indirect data can replace or replicate the insight derived from engaging directly with users and prospective users themselves.

Seeing Results: How User Research Pays Off

Incorporating user research into product development is essential for achieving key performance indicators like adoption and adherence. But how exactly does it pay off? Here are a couple examples:

• A global clinical study team sought to improve patient recruitment and protocol adherence for a rare skin disease trial. By interviewing trial naive and trial experienced patients and their caregivers, they uncovered insights that informed a more patient-friendly study design and recruitment materials.

• A commercial pharma team struggled with 50% medication adherence dropoff after launch. Ethnographic research into prescribed patients' lives identified confusion around proper dosage and communication with clinicians as a key driver.

Products designed collaboratively with end users are more intuitive, more convenient, and ultimately more impactful. The solution that emerges is not just built for users but built with them.

Mini-Communities for User Research

If you're sold on the value of user research, you might think of hiring a consultancy. But let me propose an alternative approach that harnesses the collective power of users.

At Merakoi, we run mini-communities -- small pools of patients that provide ongoing insights and feedback. Unlike sporadic focus groups, mini-communities persist over months or years as integral partners in product development. And, unlike standing advisory boards, turnover is encouraging to bring fresh voices.

Mini-communities may consist of several different cohorts of users, such as:

• Experienced users already familiar with a product or condition
• Naive users new to a product or condition
• Champions or influencers who can promote the product
• Specific demographics like newly diagnosed, fit vs. unfit, healthcare system, or age/gender

This diversity of perspectives ensures feedback represents the full spectrum of stakeholders.

Let's see how this worked for one promising digital health startup. The startup had secured regulatory approval in German (DiGa) and early commercial success with their digital solution for heart failure management. However, they knew that to achieve their vision of empowering patients worldwide, they needed to expand beyond a high-touch personal monitoring model.

The startup turned to Merakoi for mini-communities to continually guide development of a self-management program. Here's how it went:

1. Recruited a cohort of experienced users who had used the digital therapeutic for over 6 months. This gave insights into the high-touch monitoring model.
2. Also recruited a second cohort of naive users - those newly diagnosed with a less severe grade of heart failure. This represented their target expansion demographic.
3. Conducted remote interviews with both cohorts to understand their different needs and perspectives on managing their condition daily.
4. As the self-management software was built, both cohorts tested prototypes and provided feedback from their distinct vantage points.
5. Reviewed marketing ideas and messaging with each group. Experienced users valued interoperability of devices while newer users wanted more education.
6. After launch, the standing mini-communities continued providing insights into real-world usage and enhancement ideas.

My final takeaway: the future of human-centered healthcare is bright when we embrace user research not as an obligation, but as an opportunity to meaningfully connect with and empower the people we seek to help.

About Merakoi
Merakoi partners with health and life sciences companies to build mini-communities that guide product development through continuous user insights. Our network of patients/advocates and proprietary community platform enable engaging, longitudinal co-creation between users and developers. The result is human-centered solutions that resonate powerfully in the real world.

Ready to create health solutions that resonate? Contact us for more information about mini-communities.