At Significo, we believe that personalization in digital health is key to transforming healthcare experiences to be more engaging and lead to better outcomes. Having worked with healthcare providers, insurance, providers, and technology companies, here are our tips for developing strategies and features for digital health products that take advantage of the possibilities of personalization:

Tip #1: Ensure a multi-disciplinary approach

Implementing personalization in a digital health product requires a multidisciplinary approach to ensure its effectiveness and a truly personalized experience for users.

• User research is crucial to understand the needs, preferences, and pain points of different user segments, providing the foundation for personalized experiences.
• Data & analytics teams play a pivotal role in collecting, processing, and analyzing user data to identify patterns and trends that inform personalization strategies.
• Machine learning experts are essential for developing algorithms that can learn and predict user needs and preferences, enabling tailored content, recommendations, and a fully personalized experience. Machine learning system architecture specialists are needed to build and maintain the infrastructure that supports real-time data processing and personalization, ensuring the system is scalable, secure, and efficient.
• Medical & psychology expertise ensures that the personalized interventions are scientifically sound and aligned with best practices in healthcare and mental health, enhancing the overall efficacy and safety of the product.
• Design professionals contribute by creating intuitive and engaging user interfaces that seamlessly integrate personalized elements, ensuring that the experience is both visually appealing and easy to navigate.

Together, these disciplines collaborate to create a holistic and effective personalized digital health product that meets the diverse needs of its users. To generate the best ideas around personalization, collaborative cross-disciplinary workshops and regular working sessions with these teams are essential, ensuring that diverse perspectives and expertise are integrated into personalization strategies.

At Significo, we aim to achieve extreme personalization in our digital health products, where content, product features, and design are intricately tailored to each individual user and dynamically influence one another. This approach involves personalizing content based on detailed user preferences and behaviors, ensuring that every recommendation is highly relevant and engaging. Product features are adapted to align with these personalized content insights, enhancing functionality and usability to meet specific user needs. At the same time, the design of the product evolves to reflect individual tastes and preferences, creating a cohesive and intuitive experience. By integrating these elements, our goal is to deliver a seamless and deeply personalized user journey where content, product, data and design work in closely together to enhance overall satisfaction and effectiveness.

Tip #2: Find hotspots for personalization

Using your digital product’s data to understand your users, their success and how they interact with the tool helps to further select and prioritize the correct personalization method. Significo uses statistical data evaluation to identify hotspots where different segments of users have problems in their digital health journey

These analyses include descriptive analytics and machine learning. Descriptive analytics quickly show where in the user journey problems arise. Machine Learning will reveal frequent usage patterns and predictors for usage satisfaction or duration. Statistics on these can then nicely identify where users stop working with the product without having reached an endpoint and will show how specific user segments interact with specific features.

By identifying feature preferences and behaviors, we can improve user engagement and retention, and reduce drop-offs. We can also flag users likely to leave soon, enabling timely human support intervention.

Tip #3: Identify essential functionalities with user research

To ensure a thorough understanding of user preferences, needs, and pain points, in addition to the data analysis described above, conducting extensive user research is essential. This can be achieved by various methods:

• Surveys and Interviews: Deploy comprehensive surveys and conduct one-on-one interviews with users from different segments. These tools provide qualitative insights that go beyond quantitative data, revealing deeper motivations and frustrations. By asking open-ended questions, we can uncover nuanced user experiences and identify unmet needs that quantitative data alone might not reveal.
• Usability Testing: Conduct usability testing sessions where users are observed interacting with the product. This helps identify specific areas where users struggle, experience confusion, or drop off. By recording and analyzing these sessions, we can gain a detailed understanding of user behavior and pinpoint exact pain points. This hands-on approach provides actionable insights into improving the user interface and overall user experience.
• Focus Groups: Organize focus groups to facilitate discussions among diverse user groups. These sessions allow us to gather a wide range of perspectives on what users value most in the product and their expectations for personalization. Focus groups can also reveal common themes and unique viewpoints that may not emerge in individual interviews, providing a richer context for decision-making.
• User Feedback Analysis: Continuously collect and analyze user feedback from various channels, such as app reviews, customer support interactions, and social media. This ongoing process ensures that we stay updated on user sentiment and can quickly address emerging issues or trends.
• Identify Key User Needs: Synthesize data from user research to pinpoint the most pressing needs and preferences of different user segments. For example, if a significant portion of users indicates a desire for more personalized health advice, this area becomes a focal point for personalization efforts. This step ensures that personalization strategies are aligned with actual user demands.

Tip #4: Assess Feasibility and Impact

Evaluate each personalization method for feasibility, considering technical requirements, resource availability, and implementation complexity. Additionally, estimate the potential impact on user satisfaction, retention, and overall health outcomes. This assessment helps prioritize methods that are not only effective but also practical to implement within the given constraints. Informed decision-making is crucial to the successful implementation of personalization methods. This process involves several key steps:

• Prioritize Methods: Rank personalization methods based on their potential to meet identified user needs, feasibility, and expected impact. For example, if data analysis reveals a high drop-off rate at a specific feature, behavioral personalization to streamline the user journey might be prioritized. This prioritization ensures that efforts are focused on the most impactful areas.
• Pilot Testing: Implement the top-ranked personalization method on a small scale to test its effectiveness. Monitor key metrics such as user engagement, satisfaction, and retention during the pilot phase. This real-world testing provides valuable feedback and allows for adjustments before a full-scale rollout.
• Iterate Based on Feedback: Use feedback from the pilot to refine the personalization approach. Continuously analyze data to ensure the method meets user needs and enhances their experience. This iterative process involves making adjustments based on user feedback and monitoring the impact of changes, ensuring continuous improvement.
• Data-Driven Decision Making: Throughout the process, maintain a data-driven approach. Regularly review and analyze performance metrics to make informed decisions. This approach ensures that personalization strategies are grounded in real-world data and user feedback, leading to more effective and user-centered solutions.

Following these steps in your digital health product development helps ensure you are identifying the right strategies for personalization.

This blog is part of a series on Personalization by Significo.

To find out more about Significo’s personalization capabilities, visit Significo.com/solutions.