Design 8 min read

Why clinicians hate your software

Because you designed it from a requirements doc, not from a shift. And because they are tired in ways you cannot imagine.

Shift, not spec

Requirements docs describe what the software should do. They do not describe what it feels like to use it on hour ten of a twelve-hour shift with three patients deteriorating and an alarm going off down the hall.

Go watch

There is no substitute for shadowing the actual user on the actual shift. Every senior healthcare designer I trust has done it. Every piece of healthcare software that gets hated on Reddit was shipped by a team that didn't.