3 Design Thinking principles to shape a great digital health product

We draw on a simple but powerful model from design thinking: A great product must be desirable, viable, and feasible.

These three forces are often in tension. Focusing too much on one while ignoring the others leads to unsustainable solutions—products that may be loved by users but impossible to build, or technically robust but lacking in value or engagement.

When applied together, these principles spark creative problem-solving. They act as a framework for decision-making, helping cross-functional teams find the right balance between user needs, business goals and operational realities.

Every successful digital product starts with people. Design thinking begins with empathy. This means understanding what your target users (whether patients, HCPs or internal teams) need, value and experience.

To create a desirable product, we ask:

• Who are we designing for?

• What challenges do they face?

• Where does our product fit into their broader context?

That context is key. It’s not enough to understand how users interact with your platform. We also explore what happens before and after that moment. What triggered their need? What else are they juggling? What support do they expect?

Too often, organisations rely on assumptions, skipping user research or hiding behind artefacts that don’t reflect the real world. We believe in building quick, testable prototypes and putting them in front of users early. This helps uncover what works, what doesn’t, and where we can improve, before too much time or budget is committed.

A desirable product can’t exist in isolation. If the other two principles — feasibility and viability — are ignored, the result is a product full of compromises that doesn’t deliver the experience users were promised.

No matter how useful or elegant a product is, if it can’t sustain itself commercially, it won’t last. In digital health and pharma, demonstrating return on investment is essential for long-term success and internal buy-in.

A viable product is one that supports strategic business goals. That might mean improving patient outcomes, reducing HCP support costs, enhancing brand trust, or enabling faster treatment decisions. The specific KPIs may vary, but the principle remains: the product must deliver measurable impact.

We work with clients to define what success looks like upfront. By clearly identifying KPIs and aligning them with user needs, we can focus design and development efforts on the areas that matter most.

This also helps navigate complexity. In pharma, where product development cycles are long and regulatory environments are strict, building a cost-effective, scalable solution is not just ideal, it’s critical.

Feasibility is about much more than technical implementation. It includes systems, operations, people and partnerships — all the moving parts needed to launch and maintain a product effectively.

In a healthcare or pharma context, that might involve:

• Integration with legacy platforms

• Training customer support or medical teams

• Collaborating with regional markets or affiliates

• Meeting compliance and data privacy requirements

• Securing buy-in from stakeholders across the organisation

We often refer to these as “peripheral actors”, the people behind the scenes who can make or break the user experience. If they’re not brought in early, or if they don’t understand or support the product, feasibility becomes a major risk.

We help clients map the full ecosystem, identify these critical players, and design with operational realities in mind. That means fewer surprises down the line, and a smoother path to launch.

Applying desirability, viability and feasibility consistently takes focus and discipline. Here are a few practical ways to put design thinking into action:

Turn risks into opportunities

Instead of avoiding the toughest challenges, face them head-on. Start by identifying the biggest risks to your product’s success, then explore what would need to be true to overcome them. This shifts the mindset from reactive to proactive and often leads to stronger, more resilient solutions.

A Lean Canvas or risk mapping workshop can help teams prioritise efforts based on assumptions that need validation.

Use design sprints to align and accelerate

Design sprints are a powerful way to explore ideas, test with users, and align internal teams quickly. They're particularly useful in complex organisations where stakeholder access can be limited.

We often run sprints with our clients to:

• Map the full user journey (including HCPs, patients, internal actors)

• Prototype and test critical interactions

• Validate hypotheses before committing to build

• Get stakeholders involved early

Preparation is key — collecting data beforehand helps shape a more focused and valuable sprint.

Launch an MVP to measure real-world impact

Once core assumptions are validated, the next step is to build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). This is the only true way to measure how well your product performs across all three principles.

An MVP allows you to test:

• User engagement and satisfaction (desirability)

• Operational and technical delivery (feasibility)

• Business impact and ROI (viability)

Just remember: launching without clear hypotheses or a solid understanding of your users can lead to failure. Build in measurement, feedback loops and space to iterate.

Those 3 simple principles form the foundation of great digital products. At Graphite, they guide our work with pharma and healthcare organisations to ensure we’re not just delivering features, but solving real problems for real people.

By focusing on outcomes first, questioning assumptions, and applying design thinking with rigour, teams can build products that are truly impactful.