Designing a great digital experience is never one-size-fits-all. Yet too often, products are built for the “average user”, a persona that doesn’t exist. When you design for everyone, you usually end up creating for no one in particular.
Real-world users come with specific needs, limitations, and expectations. That’s especially true when creating experiences for seniors, patients, or people with disabilities. The stakes are higher. The friction is more frustrating. And the cost of a bad experience can be more than just lost time; it can affect quality of life, access to care, or personal dignity.
Let’s look at what it means to design with real people in mind.
Designing Patient Portals: Empathy Over Efficiency
Patient portals are often designed for administrative efficiency, rather than a human-centered experience. But patients don’t log in to appreciate your backend workflows. They log in because they want to view lab results, ask questions, refill a prescription, or pay a bill. The design must center on clarity, simplicity, and emotional tone.
Key considerations:
- Use plain language and avoid medical jargon
- Prioritize large, legible typography with clear section labels
- Offer quick access to the most common tasks: messages, appointments, and billing
- Anticipate emotional states, patients may be worried or stressed
A well-designed portal makes the patient feel informed and supported. A poorly designed one makes them feel lost and uncared for.
Designing for Seniors: Age Is Not a Barrier, Poor UX Is
Seniors are one of the fastest-growing demographics of digital users. Yet most apps treat them as edge cases.
Design principles that matter most:
- High-contrast colors for visibility
- Larger tap targets for accessibility
- Step-by-step flows with progress indicators
- Minimal gestures and reliance on swipes
- Default text at a readable size, with easy access to settings
Also, patience in interaction design is key. Avoid timeouts, pop-ups, or auto-advancing screens. Allow users time to make informed decisions and take action.
Design for seniors, like you would design for yourself twenty years from now. You’ll get it right.
Designing for People with Disabilities: Inclusion from the Start
Accessible design isn’t just about adding an alt tag or making text resizable; it’s about creating an inclusive experience. It’s about building a product that works for everyone from day one.
Inclusive UX means:
- Screen reader compatibility with properly labeled buttons and inputs
- Keyboard navigation support
- Voice input readiness
- Thoughtful color and contrast choices to support color blindness
- Precise error handling with accessible alerts
Beyond technical standards, inclusion is a mindset. It means validating assumptions, testing with real users, and making accessibility part of the product lifecycle, not a post-launch checklist.
The Bigger Picture
Designing for specific user groups should not be considered edge-case thinking. It is a core-case design. When you make a product work for people with the most constraints, you often improve it for everyone.
That’s how ramps became better than stairs, not just for wheelchairs, but for strollers, luggage, bikes, and delivery carts.
The same applies to digital ramps. Inclusive UX is better UX.