Health Literacy
Digital Health Literacy Is a Product Responsibility
Designing health technology so people can find, understand and act on information without unnecessary cognitive burden.
Comprehension cannot be assumed
People use health products with different levels of clinical knowledge, digital confidence and emotional capacity. A confusing interface can turn a routine task into a safety risk.
Reduce interpretation work
- Use familiar words before specialist terms.
- Present one clear next action.
- Explain numbers with ranges and context.
- Use exact dates instead of relative phrases.
- Keep help available at the point of need.
| Instead of | Prefer |
|---|---|
| “Your result is abnormal” | Explain result, urgency and next step |
| “Contact us soon” | Give an exact timeframe and route |
| Internal department names | Describe the service patients recognise |
Test understanding
Ask participants what they think the information means and what they would do next. Recognition and task completion reveal more than asking whether copy “looks clear.”
Plain language preserves clinical meaning while removing avoidable complexity.
Health literacy improves when product, content and clinical teams share responsibility for comprehension.