Apple Health iOS Redesign: An attempt to help you build better health and habits.
Apple Health on iOS — while offering useful features, felt underutilised for things like sleep and medication tracking. This inspired me to start a personal project focused on redesigning the app, prioritising better sleep monitoring, medication reminders, and nutrition features. My goal was to create a more engaging and holistic health experience that motivates healthy choices.
PROJECT
A concept of Apple Health iOS redesign
Everyone has different health goals. Reaching your health goals is not as simple as creating them. How could we increase user engagement by providing user health guidance, and utilise their health data to recommend on how to reach those goals a wee easier.
Research and problem definition.
While Apple Health offers basic tracking, users often rely on specialised external apps for features like goal-setting, nutrition, or community support. These apps can connect to Apple Health, but the process is fragmented. This creates a frustrating experience for users who want to see all their health data in one place to help them reach their goals.
A study on online reviews, social media and surveys showed me that Apple Health app is lacking some basic features. As a result, while some users would complete their workflows in other apps — they were only using Health app to see consolidated health data — others never used the app, or abandoned it after sometime.
Based on research, most of the users use Health app to help them track their progress on reaching their goals. Through research and surveys, it became clearer that there are massive pain points in Apple Health app.
Reading the health data is not very intuitive.
Requires other apps to work — forcing users have to go back and forth between apps.
Users can’t easily control how their data to be viewed
Don’t know what to do with the data
Desk research and online surveyOpportunity and ideations.
Apple Health users rarely use the app directly, preferring external apps to track their health data, highlighting an opportunity to make the experience more seamless and engaging.
As an Apple Health user myself, I can hardly remember when the last time I opened the app. It’s one of those apps that is sitting in my “Utilities” folder somewhere. And I kept using other apps to satisfy my needs.
Apple Health users found that it’s easier to have external apps to input their data into the Health app, rather than inputting the data directly on the Health app.
Some opportunities that came up during my ideations:
Customisable health data to show the users the most important data as per their needs. This could be based on health data category (workout, meals), but also date.
Inputting data should be easier.
Allowing users to set up a personal goal and track their progress.
Leverage data points from external apps connected to the Health app and provide recommendations for users on how to better reach their goal.
Summary data should be easier to digest and customisable.
Mind and state mappingDesign explorations.
An overview of your day just for you.
The current Summary page in Apple Health feels too focused on raw data. While it shows things like steps and exercise, it doesn't connect that data to my personal goals. I want to redesign this page into an Overview that helps me understand how my day is contributing to my overall health goals.
What to do now — one quick summary of what action is recommended for you to reach your goal.
Only show the important data and benefit from it. Data point that is entirely up to you. In this case, the user’s goal is to lose some weight hence comparing between the calories burned and intake.
The overview of your day. Your day is divided into Morning, Afternoon, and Evening. The app recommends your actions and also shows what have been scheduled for you — this all depends on your goal.
Your guide on nutrition plan.
Nutrition plays a huge role in achieving your health goals. The app can help you make better food choices by offering personalised nutrition plans and recommendations.
Summary of your breakfast — app that recommends how much food intake you should be taking to reach your goal. This plan is recommended based on on your Weight Loss goal. This data is provided by MyFitnessPlan.
How do you even calculate carbs? — the data should be easily digestible. The app tells you what does 40gr carbs mean in terms of food that is commonly made for breakfast.
Our recommendations, but make it your own — the app also tells you the alternatives of 1 banana waffle. You can also connect with other external apps for this recommendation — Deliveroo or Ocado.
Recording data may be manual but should be easy.
While many apps automatically send data to Apple Health, there are still times when you'll need to add information directly. The redesigned app makes it easy to manually log your health data.
Not just about workout.
Health is about more than just exercise! The app will offer modules to cover various aspects of well-being. For example, the medication module lets you track your daily medications, vitamins, and supplements – all important parts of staying healthy.
The app lets you create reminders so you never miss a dose of your medication or supplements. You can see your medication list, instructions, and easily mark when you've taken them.
The app helps you spread out your medication throughout the day for optimal effectiveness. For example, a "twice a day" prescription can be automatically scheduled for a morning and evening dose. You can also customise these timings to fit your preferences.
All about you and your journey.
Journey page lets you track your health over time. See historical data and customise the view to focus on the metrics that matter most to you.
It’s better to do it together.
The Nearby section keeps you connected. Discover local health-related events categorised by activity type (exercise, nutrition, etc.). You can even follow friends to see what workouts or activities they're enjoying.
What’s next.
User testing is critical to validate this design, uncover new opportunities, and refine it further. After launch, we'll closely monitor usage patterns and user feedback to see how it performs in the real world.
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