The Apple Watch Medications app’s design: simple but very helpful for people with ADHD
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is marked by an ongoing pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that interferes with functioning or development. Here, I will share some reasons why the Medications app can be essential for people with ADHD and see how it is connected to the UI and UX of the app itself.
What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word Apple Watch? Is it the workout app? Or the heartbeat sensor? If you answered the question with one of its features, it would almost certainly be a health-related feature or app, which has become a major selling point of the Apple Watch since its release.
And yes, Medications is also one of the Apple Watch’s popular feature. Basically, this app allows you to add your medication list into the app and there will be a reminder to take your pills. Looks simple? I know, I was having the same thought too, until I found out that it is much more than that, for people with ADHD.
Taking drugs routinely is still a problem
In America, around half of the people prescribed for chronic diseases do not take their meds as instructed. And it causes a huge loss, like, more than a billion of dollars. There are lots of reasons why this serious issue happened in the first place, and one of them is that many people forget to take their medicine.
Time-blindness in ADHD person
Time is sensed by the human body in the same way that light, sound, taste, and other elements of our environment are. A typical human brain can map out a reasonably accurate sense of what time of day it is, how much time has passed, and how much time there is before any upcoming events based on a combination of internal and external cues.
In people with ADHD, time perception is disrupted, resulting in a symptom known as time blindness.
For example, while you may “easily’’ remember to attend your friend’s birthday party this afternoon, people with ADHD may fail to attend at all because of time disorientation they experienced in previous activities.
This symptom also happened to Miss. Dian, my friend from Twitter, who shared her experience dealing with ADHD:
Rough translation: Her brain only recognizes NOW and NOT NOW, so when her husband asked her to “sign their kids’ rapport after finishing lunch”, she would definitely forget about it because her brain recognized it as a NOT NOW activity. (She might be distracted and doing something else instead, because her mind only recognizes what she has to do NOW, at the time she was asked for the favor).
This symptom can affect the daily lives of people with ADHD. Because they have no ‘boundaries’ with the duration of their activity, some tasks can be easily forgotten, like paying the bills, or calling an Uber, or even taking medicine.
ADHD Hyperfocus Symptoms
Well, can you fix the problem that is caused by time blindness simply by using a phone alarm? The answer is, yes to a certain point. There are some people with ADHD who can survive with their day-to-day activities with the help of an alarm, but Miss Dian here faces another struggle.
Have you ever played a game and lost your track of time? Well, people with ADHD face this symptom more often and more intensely. When they find something that takes their interest, their brain can completely block out their surroundings.
When the alarm went off, she dismissed it but completely forgot to do what was said on the alarm because she was “hyperfocusing” on her task. And it happens all the time. This will not only cause the medication adherence issue mentioned at the beginning of this article, but it will also raise concerns about her health as she misses taking her medications.
While the alarm from the phone is always dismissed by Miss Dian, the reminder on the smartwatch always works for her.
Why apple watch is becoming her best friend
I tried to connect Miss Dian’s story with some guide about healthcare UX, also with some UI principles, and here’s what I found:
- Provide accessibility: understandable and perceivable design
The Medication app interface allows the user to quickly grasp the information without cluttering the page with unnecessary data. Furthermore, the icons and writing used are not ambiguous, which is very important for people with special needs.
In Miss Dian’s case, the pill icon that is very obvious showing on her hand, makes her more aware that there is a task (to take the medicine) that she has to do right NOW.
In the picture above, the left watch is the actual interface of a reminder from Medications. It directly shows you two medicines that you have to take, and on the bottom page is a button that you can just tap on if you’ve already taken the medicine. Imagine if Apple used the design on the right or the middle. The user will be confused, or maybe even upset, when the reminder pops up.
2. Accessibility: easy to operate, easy user flow
One thing that I noticed about Apple Watch navigation is that it focuses on its core functionality. For example, this page shows the name of the medicine and the dosage, the time to consume it, and the action buttons.
Furthermore, the short page hierarchy allows users to quickly navigate to their destination page. In this case, to label the notification as ‘taken’, ‘skipped’, or even ‘dismissed’ to set off the alarm.
The flow to confirm your meds’ schedule consists of three steps. Now imagine if the user has to navigate 10 different pages just to do it, they will leave right away!
3. The hierarchy of the button
I also noticed that the hierarchy of the buttons is very effective when the user wants to label the notification. The users, and possibly the product designers, may want to mark the alarm as ‘taken’ or ‘skipped’ right away. As a result, the page displays these two buttons as the top hierarchy. As for the other action buttons, which are ‘dismiss’ and ‘remind me later’, placed in the bottom hierarchy, shown after the user scrolls down the page.
4. Clean interface
When it comes to smartwatches, designers work in a very small space compared to tablets or even smartphones. Obviously, you do not want to put all the information from a single page of a smartphone onto a single page on a smartwatch. Now, this may be a subjective opinion, but the design of the interface is very clean. You will instantly know what the information is about because the use of margins, padding, and white space is very clear. The picture above also shows a bit of use of the Law of Proximity, as it uses small spacings to categorize different sections of information.
5. Clear and concise message
The focus of people with ADHD quickly shifts. That is why it is crucial to show clear information that you can grasp in milliseconds. For example, in the middle picture, it says , “1 chewable at 8:01 pm,” a very short message but not ambiguous. Surely, if you change the message to “A pill that you can chew at 8 pm” or “One munchable at 8:01 pm”, it will become a bad copy.
6. Patient-centered: accessible medication history
Another point to creating a good design for healthcare products is to focus on the patient. The Medications app not only provides the user with reminders but also records their medication history (and it can be edited too!).
This feature is extremely useful when you need to change your record because you accidentally pressed the wrong button. More importantly, the record is saved in the cloud and can be accessed by you or your clinician (only if you want to share it), allowing you to track your health progress using your data. This could provide doctors with valuable information about how their patients are taking medications as well.
7. Additional feature: drugs interaction
I think this feature launched with their latest update. This unique feature shows the users educational content on the medications they take, such as how to pronounce them, what they’re for, side effects, and potential interactions. If there is a potential conflict between two drugs on your list, you will be notified.
When creating your medication list, you can specify whether you use alcohol, cannabis, or tobacco. (which you can deactivate at any time.) If you do, you will be notified if any of your medications have the potential to interact with those substances. This processing occurs on the phone itself, not in the cloud. Sadly, it is determined solely by software, with no human intervention, which I personally think is a bit risky.
8. Trustable
Because the Medications app exists in the Apple ecosystem, you don’t have to install another medication tracker apps and send your data to another third party. This is good news since medication data is considered sensitive private information, so it’s supposed to be safer to record your data in this app.
Other than that, this app is also equipped with a passcode, Touch ID, Face ID, and two-factor authentication.
Finally, I believe Medications is one of the good apps available that may benefit people with ADHD. During the course of writing this article, I discovered that there are already many advanced apps that specialize in assisting ADHD people, such as CoolCraig — an app that detect and notify your mood state so it will be easier for you to regulate your emotions — , and I believe that this also indicates very good progress in design and product development in the mental health area. I hope that people and businesses become more aware that design can have a significant impact on people with special needs’ lives.
To be honest, I am still new to UI/UX but I am really passionate about learning healthcare UX, so if you find any mistakes here, please let me know and I’ll be happy to learn from the feedback. :)
Some disclaimers:
1) While I may not be a healthcare expert, I did my best research here in order to minimize misinformations that may happen in this article 2) If you think you have one or more symptoms of ADHD, I suggest you not to self-diagnose, please contact professionals immediately. 3) Every single person has their own comfortable way to function with their condition, and smartwatch is not the only solution for it. 4) I am not sponsored by Apple, you can use any smartwatch that you want to use. I write this article only for the purpose of raising people’s awareness toward mental health and design.
Honorable mention: Miss Dian, who has a big brave heart, and allows me to share her very own personal experience. Without her story, I may not realize at all that Apple watch design could be helpful for people with ADHD. Thank you, Dear!
Anyway, happy ADHD awareness month!
image sources: apple.com, apple insider, twitter, unsplash, istock, freepik.com
