NHS • CONCEPT 2025
TIMELINE
8 Weeks
2024
SKILLS
UI Design
User Research
Motion Design
TEAM
1 Designer (me!)
TOOLS USED
Figma
Jitter
OVERVIEW
NHS app: the one-stop-shop for anything health
This project repositions the NHS as a fundamental mental health resource by leveraging new technologies and existing infrastructure to meet evolving user needs. The redesign transforms the vast NHS knowledge base into an approachable interface that promotes patient engagement and education. Rather than relying on gimmicks like AI therapists, it focuses on tools that support patient care and facilitate communication between patients and medical professionals. The solution required completely rethinking the original app into a modern design that prioritises patient needs while respecting the organisation's resource constraints.
Desired outcomes
Promote patient autonomy and confidence in understanding treatment plans.
Combat misinformation by establishing the NHS app as the primary source of reliable, accessible medical information.
Increase user engagement and reduce friction with mental health services for both new users and existing patients.
Problem SPACE
We're in a mental health crisis, let's do something about it
Users perceive the current NHS app as slow, outdated, and difficult to navigate with poorly implemented functionality. It fails to educate users about their health, creating reliance on already-stretched NHS staff. Key frustrations include fragmented health services across multiple apps and websites, cumbersome navigation, technical glitches, and limited customisation. This results in a complicated, untrustworthy experience that fails modern digital-first audiences.
OPPORTUNITies
How could the app benefit from the ecosystem that the NHS created?
The NHS has built one of the world's largest healthcare knowledge bases but fails to leverage it effectively. Information remains scattered across platforms, often requiring staff contact for clarification. The app is difficult to navigate, text-heavy, and unfocused, displaying excessive irrelevant information. The following three key opportunities address these challenges:
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Integration
Integrating with APIs like Apple's HealthKit for sharing health data from fitness trackers seamlessly, providing medical professionals with the information they need to make the best decision for the patient.
Consolidation
By combining various existing NHS resources, such as their knowledge base, into a streamlined and user-friendly interface that can boost patient autonomy and avoid unnecessary contact for basic information.
Focus
The existing app fails to efficiently provide the information patients need to take ownership over their treatments. The proposed solution should focus on organising the large amount of information available while prioritising the tasks that users actually want to achieve.
SOLUTION
Core flows
Promoting treatment seeking and adherence.
Appointment booking is made easy through clear and guided steps. Users have the ability to download the appointment directly to their calendar or get directions all from the same page, reducing the amount of wasted appointments.
Providing multiple routes for essential tasks
If a user has difficulty navigating or simply prefers a more guided approach, the prominent help button loads a private AI agent that actions specific tasks for them or directs them to the right department, improving treatment navigation and accessibility.
Empowering patients through education
The Dashboard dynamically updates depending on the user's needs. For example, the prescription section shows only if there are medications to be ordered, and upcoming appointments only appear if there is one. Users can reorganise the different sections and pin or hide any they don't find useful. It places important information and makes tasks such as contacting a GP reception more accessible.
Making NHS resources more accessible
The Dashboard dynamically updates depending on the user's needs. For example, the prescription section shows only if there are medications to be ordered, and upcoming appointments only appear if there is one. Users can reorganise the different sections and pin or hide any they don't find useful. It places important information and makes tasks such as contacting a GP reception more accessible.
Consolidating various data points in a single place
Medical records are consolidated into a single well-organised feed with options to filter, search and export data. Patients also benefit from AI summaries of previous appointments to make information more understandable. No more deciphering of technical jargon or doctor's handwriting!
RESEARCH
Understanding the context
Primary research included user surveys and interviews to understand experiences and needs. Secondary research covered NHS documentation, app store reviews, and competitor analysis to understand organisational goals and contextualise the app against private alternatives. Given the NHS's incredibly diverse patient demographic, the project focused specifically on 18-34 year-olds—the age range most impacted by mental health and most likely to use digital health tools—while ensuring the final solution remained accessible to all ages.
KEY USER INSIGHTS
The NHS app doesn’t benefit from its reach
Difficult to navigate UI
Poor treatment understanding
A significant proportion of users lacked understanding about why they were prescribed a treatment or medication and how they worked. Difficulty in navigating NHS services was also reported.
Irrelevant information
Users reported a lack of relevance to the information provided and wished it were more tailored to their needs, allowing for more customisation. All users surveyed agreed that access to medical records is a top priority, with prescriptions and appointments also highlighted.
EXPERIENCE MAPPING
Becoming my users
The resulting knowledge was synthesised in through a user personas, journey maps, scenarios, flows and a information architecture diagram. This provided a deep understanding of the users experience, their needs along with opportunities and other existing solutions that could be adapted or at least learned from. With this information the following key insights were delineated:
WIREFRAMES
Brainstorming solutions
Although the original idea was to build a separate NHS mental health app, research showed this wouldn’t best serve users. One of their main frustrations was the fragmentation of information and resources, so a more holistic solution was needed. The first wireframe therefore added a mental health tab within a single app, but kept it separate from other health areas.
On reflection, that separation still didn’t match how users experience their health. Physical and mental health are intertwined, and users need support with both. Two dashboards with separate prescriptions and recommendations would be confusing and risk downplaying the role of medication in mental health. The second wireframe resolved this by integrating mental health into the main dashboard, creating a single, unified view of each person’s care.
Prototype
An app that goes beyond the basics
The prototype featured prominent medication buttons serving as shortcuts for ordering and accessing NHS drug safety information. It used NHS’s iconic blue for familiarity while employing the broader colour palette to distinguish different medications. Navigation was reorganised to prioritise multitasking between pages. Information was grouped into rearrangeable sections. A 3D interactive human model was considered but rejected following user feedback.
Prototype
User testing
I invited back some users to try these prototypes, observed how they used them, how they felt, and noted their feedback.
Realigning with the user’s needs
Users shared their preference that the colour distinction in medications would be more useful for highlighting medications that were due to be reordered rather than differentiating between them.
Most considered the 3D interactive model a gimmick and found it more useful to have their NHS number accessible instead.
Visual cues are crucial
Some seemed confused when navigating the medical records, when asked, they shared that we similarity in the colour palette used for cancelled appointments and user provided information made them appear related.
A few users were unclear if an appointment was booked or not due to a lack of visual confirmation to signify task completion.
REFLECTION
What I learned.
Description.
Other projects
