In most Indian families, one person quietly looks after a parent's health. Reports sit in a plastic folder, prescriptions in a drawer and photos across WhatsApp. When we built Jatna Parivar, a health record for the whole family (pets included), we were designing for that person, for the parent, and for the doctor reading it all in a hurry.
It changed how we design. Here's what we learned.
1. Design for the least confident user
Most apps are designed for people who are already comfortable with apps. A family health app can't be. So we set firm rules: large text, 44-pixel touch targets, plain words, and nothing hidden behind gestures or long-presses.
The surprise: nobody found it "too simple". Clear design helps the confident user too, just faster.
2. Real data beats sample data
The founder's own family used the app from the first day. Real records (a mix of handwritten prescriptions, lab reports in different formats, medicines with brand names) exposed concerns that tidy sample data never would.
If you can, put your product in front of real use as early as you can bear to.
3. The doctor is a user too
Families don't just store records; they show them to doctors who have a minute, not ten. So we built a For the doctor page: a plain, professional summary that becomes a clinical PDF and can be shared on WhatsApp in one tap.
Ask who else reads what your users create. Designing for them often makes the product indispensable.
4. Language is more than translation
We shipped English, Hindi and Odia across the whole app, including notifications. A half-translated app tells people it wasn't really made for them. And everyday input had to understand everyday speech: Indian units, brand names and the way people actually describe a dose.
5. Audit, fix, then audit again
We scored every screen against Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics on a real phone, fixed what we found, and audited again. That loop found and fixed 27 usability issues and took the usability score from 3.2 to 4.1 out of 5.
One audit tells you what's wrong. The second tells you whether you actually fixed it.
6. Write the design down
As screens multiplied, we turned the parts into Ghara, a small design system, so every new screen feels like the same product. Consistency is what makes an app feel trustworthy, especially to people who are unsure of technology.
What this means for your product
Whether you're building for patients, clients or your own staff, the same rules hold: design for the least confident person, test with real data, think about who else reads the output, and measure usability more than once.
Building something people of every age must use? Book a strategy call and we'll share what we'd do in your case.
- Design for the least confident person who will use it, and everyone benefits.
- Real records expose concerns that sample data never will.
- Audit, fix, then audit again: our usability score went from 3.2 to 4.1 out of 5.