From Frustration to Function: Designing Health Apps with Empathy

This research explores how health app design can become more inclusive and accessible for older adults (OAs), a group often excluded from digital innovation due to usability barriers. When apps fail due to poor user experience (UX), older users are disproportionately affected — resulting in frustration, anxiety, and digital exclusion.

Using a digital design ethnographic approach, the study gathered real-life stories from OAs to understand their challenges, motivations, and expectations when using digital health tools. These insights informed the design of an immersive simulation that placed app designers ‘in the shoes of’ older users. In a high-stress, chaotic hospital-like setting, designers experienced firsthand the confusion and emotional strain caused by apps not designed with real-world contexts in mind.

This empathy-driven method prompted many to reconsider their design assumptions, leading to changes such as simplified interfaces and inclusive co-design practices. The research contributes to age-inclusive digital health design and underscores the role of empathy in technology development.