Service → Product: Medical Illustration in Tech
(Part Two)
Part 1 of this story introduces some medical illustration products in tech and alludes to medical illustrators being designers for digital health products. While part 2 is meant primarily for the membership of the Association of Medical Illustrators, I think it is equally useful for those looking to transition into a role in digital product design from different fields, and for stakeholders looking for designers fit for digital health.
What is design?
Inspired to enter tech as a designer, my research brought up more questions. What exactly is design? What makes a good designer? And hey, there’s “product design”—what’s this? Here are some answers.
Design is fundamentally about problem solving. Unlike art, aesthetics (visual or otherwise) in design do not stand alone, but are a means to an end.
Being a problem solver, the ideal designer can be considered T-shaped, one who is familiar with a variety of disciplines (the horizontal stroke of the T), and specializes in one topic (the vertical stroke of the T). This formula gives the best of both worlds: being a specialist delivers innovative solutions; being a generalist facilities communication, collaboration, and fosters empathy.
Building upon this metaphor, I’d argue that medical illustrators can become π-shaped designers: Besides having the wide skill set of a generalist, we also have deep knowledge in a scientific or medical topic, in addition to technical and creative mastery.
Going one step further, I discovered that the role of a “product designer” fits perfectly into this narrative. The definition of the term itself is still the subject of (gentle) debate in the community, but for the sake of brevity and clarity of this post, I’ll refer to the following article, by eric eriksson, for a working definition of product design, especially to the article’s list of components that make up product design.
7 skills for a product designer
Or, how medical illustrators can be product designers
If you haven’t, I highly recommend reading Eric’s article closely. I’d like to expand upon Eric’s list of product design skills as it applies to aspiring designers coming from medical illustration.
A good Product Designer knows a bit of animation, prototyping, coding, research, visual and interaction design. — eric eriksson
1. Business strategy
Medical illustrators start a new project by asking why, what, and whom the project is for. For the project to be successful, we need to identify the audience, the usage, the market, etc. The same applies for building a product: we need to identify the business value behind every decision.
2. User research
In the healthcare space, user research is especially relevant to medical illustrators. We are familiar with the medical lingo and can speak with doctors and patients with relative ease. At the same time, as observers, we can identify their pain points and needs.
3. User experience design
After identifying the need, user experience design explores different behavioral patterns to create solutions for that specific need. This means being mindful of what goes on in the user’s head, to empathize with the user.
This is exactly what medical illustrators do when we create an educational project, for example, being aware of the cognitive load of the student audience so not to overwhelm them with information, or being mindful of the cultural persona the rural audience identifies with, in the case of Ebola education from the CDC.
4. Prototyping
Prototypes are essentially sketches and storyboards in medical illustration and animation, but with many more iterations. Prototypes can take on many different forms, from papers, to animated elements, to fully interactive ones. Many of us have basic knowledge of animation and coding that can definitely be applied to creating prototypes. From low-fidelity wireframes to high-fidelity mockups, these prototypes enable us to test our ideas quickly and cheaply, so that we can go from many solutions to a few.
5. Data analysis
Many medical illustrators came from other scientific disciplines—in fact, both prerequisite requirements and program curriculum include scientific and medical courses. The Vesalius Trust scholarship (funding for visual communications in health sciences) requires research and data analysis in its application for student thesis projects. Analytical thinking is part of the medical illustration training. Our scientific mindset enables us to form hypotheses and analyze data, both qualitatively and quantitatively. This allows us to understand user and market research, to test prototypes or a final user interface, and to make statistically validated decisions for the product.
6. Graphic or visual design
Visual design creates “beautiful masterpieces of color and depth.” This is where some of us thrive in, working pixel by pixel. Illustrators understand how colors and forms work together to deliver emphasis, to convey intended messages. The same applies to visual design. The blurry background behind an important call-to-action button is analogous to an object in focus with depth of field in a 3D scene.
7. Motion design
Speaking of 3D scenes, a good number of medical illustrators are already familiar with animating objects, from simple 2D motion graphics to full-fledged 3D animations. This knowledge of working with animation timelines and motion graphics translate well to designing motion in a digital product. When well executed, these make for a delightful user experience (PSA: Don’t abuse your power).
Those are the 7 components that contribute to product design, but guess what? We can bring one more item to the digital health table:
8. Illustration
Surprise! Medical illustrators can add… illustration to a product. The need for this product design component is growing. Besides telling a story or communicating the value of your company and product, illustration can also complete the designed user experience.
Airbnb, Dropbox, Google have all embraced illustration as a distinguishing part of their products. — Meg Robichaud, Illustration in Product Design: Calculated, not cute.
Illustrations are also making way into consumer health products, exemplified by some of the products below.
- Amino enables people to find experienced doctors, estimate costs, and book apointments.
- Eve by Glow provides a support community and enables women to track sexual health.
- Mango Health uses gamification and rewards to help mangage medications and create healthy habits for users with chronic diseases.
- Oscar is a health insurance company that employs technology, design, and data to humanize health care.
While illustration can be used as the main product (as in patient education apps discussed in part 1), these illustrations play a different role here. They engage the users, act as illustrative icons, or offer a friendly voice for the product. So, expanding on “illustration adds value to digital products”, we now have:
Medical illustration adds value to digital health products
Medical illustration now goes beyond education or marketing. Consumers are taking more responsibility over their own care. At the same time, both digital and physical products are becoming more consumer-oriented. We are starting to see more consumerization of medical devices, traditionally regulated and reserved for professional care providers.
The average consumer now is no longer the patient confined in the hospital, yet they still need to deal with an overwhelming amount medical data and information that’s begging for visual clarity and explanations for a complete user experience. Product designers with medical illustration backgrounds can address this need, as the core skill of a medical illustrator is to distill complex information and convey it to a specific audience, sometimes outside of that audience’s knowledge domain.
Thank you for reading
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