Sian Townsend

I’m proud to share that the team at HITLAB has published a new white paper titled “Redefining Human-Centered Maternal Care: A Heuristic Review of the BobiHealth App.” 👉 In the paper, HITLAB evaluates how BobiHealth’s mobile platform supports expectant mothers by enabling milestone tracking, collecting meaningful data, and delivering expert-reviewed guidance—especially important given that nearly 800 maternal deaths occur globally each day, often due to missed early signs of complications. 👉 HITLAB applied Nielsen’s Ten Usability Heuristics to assess the app, and found that BobiHealth offers a well-designed, intuitive user experience with strong clinical relevance and real-time value for both mothers and clinicians. 👉 The research underscores how shifting from episodic, in-clinic maternal care to a continuous, connected monitoring model can transform outcomes—in particular for underserved populations with fragmented access and limited data visibility. As someone who is deeply committed to improving maternal health equity and advancing data-driven care models, this white paper represents a meaningful step forward. At BobiHealth, our tagline is “Because Every Mother Deserves a Safe Pregnancy.” This research reaffirms that mission and gives us concrete evidence as we scale our solution globally. 💡 I’d love to hear your thoughts: How do you see digital platforms like BobiHealth impacting maternal care in value-based health systems? What usability or data-driven challenges still stand in the way of delivering connected care to pregnant and postpartum women? If you work in maternal health, digital health, or patient engagement, I’d welcome any insights or opportunities for collaboration. 📄 Download the full white paper here: https://lnkd.in/gBPB7Xfp #maternalhealth #digitalhealth #healthtech #usability #valuebasedcare #healthequity #mhealth BobiHealth HITLAB MassChallenge Founder Institute VelocityTX BioMedSA Geekdom The PenFed Foundation for Military Heroes Institute for Veterans and Military Families - IVMF Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.

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I have been a champion of behavioral science within healthcare engagement design since day 1. For years, engagement often meant adding more reminders, calls, or messages. But the real opportunity is designing engagement strategies that guide behavior in a way that’s scalable and supportive for patients — without increasing the operational burden on care teams. In this video, Jessica Andersen, BSN, RN Director, shares how behavioral science-informed engagement strategies can help organizations support patients more effectively while allowing care teams to focus their time where it matters most. It’s a thoughtful way to approach one of healthcare’s biggest operational challenges.

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Flaw in the design hiring process: Speculative design challenges can easily become performative traps. A great article by Paul Strike for Fast Company, with contributions from Ryan Leffel, Brian A. Rice, Thomas W., and behind-the-scenes feedback from Ash Brown & Katja Forbes. #Design #Hiring https://lnkd.in/ghTqf9xF

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The rise of the super IC and the key capabilities expected: 1. High business acumen 2. High emotional intelligence - influence & partnerships 3. Quick learner & AI fluency 4. Vision 5. Fast I would argue that these are also key characteristics expected from every leader you hire. A great article by Tom Scott about the changing landscape for hiring designers. #design #superic #productdesign #ux

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There’s a lot of tourists leaving healthcare right now in search of greener pastures, notably AI. If you’re looking for a quick path to riches, you’re probably in the wrong industry. In this week’s column for Second Opinion Media, I wrote about the patience required to succeed in healthtech where exits can take 10 years +. But I believe it’s worth it, not just from a financial returns POV. But also because it’s an opportunity to build the healthcare system we want and deserve. https://lnkd.in/eNwcP_AC

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The concept of “worlds” is interesting because it names something that’s easy to overlook: a company’s relationship to a group of people and shared systems of meaning. A company’s connection to a world also feels more durable than product features, which an individual might outgrow or that might become outdated. Especially true as AI seems to be making it faster to make new things. It also names an opportunity for people who notice these kinds of connections and pick up on nuance in how other people behave. Something that can sit alongside a TAM analysis. Think about the things you’re loyal to, and how the conversation changes when you talk about those products or companies. There are some companies you actively seek out because they seem to get something about what you need. This is what “worlds” made me think about: the LEGO Group isn’t plastic blocks. It’s play, in all its forms. Good Inside isn’t just parenting advice. It’s for a world of empathetic parents. Pok Pok isn’t just for kids games. It’s for parents who are conscious of screen time and care about creativity. The New York Times Cooking isn’t just for cooks. It’s for people who want to be excited about what they’re making and share it with others. These worlds also help create the meaning behind why a company or product matters. They also give companies something to aspire to beyond products and features. There are obvious parallels to different brand, positioning, and design movements. But naming the role of human meaning, relationships, and connection feels more important than ever right now. Fascinating to have Tamara Moellenberg of ReD Associates on to discuss where strategy is going.

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Excited to see Raquel Félix and Christina T. share how UX insights can turn into real impact at Sword Health — and how aligning research and product can move the needle for users and teams alike.

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I've anticipated today's episode for a long time... b/c we get to do a deep dive into the new era of design at Stripe with their Head of Design Katie Dill 👇 We talk about prototyping, collaboration, hiring, and everything they're doing to push past the status quo (including a tour of Katie's favorite design details on the new site). it's a good one :) 🎧 https://lnkd.in/gmXtjtcm

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This is super interesting and especially relevant right now. AI is reshaping product design, development, and engineering at an unprecedented pace. Many of the assumptions and practices we relied on are being disrupted, and we need to adapt quickly.

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The classic design process is evolving and fast. For African tech innovators, this is a wake-up call: the way we build products, design interfaces, and solve problems is changing globally. Leveraging AI, thinking beyond traditional processes, and embracing new design archetypes could be the key to creating world-class products from Africa. 🌍✨ Tech is no longer about following established playbooks, it’s about adapting, experimenting, and innovating faster than ever. #AfricanTech #Innovation #Design #AI #ProductBuilding #FutureOfWork

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The U.S. IPO market is showing signs of revival in 2025, driven by strong investor appetite for high-growth, AI-powered software companies like Figma, whose blockbuster debut reflects renewed enthusiasm for quality tech listings. With robust institutional backing, surging public market interest, and a pipeline of enterprise-focused AI firms preparing to go public, the IPO landscape is shifting toward substance over speculation—though macroeconomic and valuation risks remain.

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Most designers say they want impact. What they really want is proof. At scale, I had to formalize proof. I once built a quarterly UX strategy using Jared Spool's Persuasive Metrics to connect design decisions to revenue. A 2% reduction in onboarding friction translated into six figures in retained revenue. That was the language the room spoke. Dashboards. Quarterly reviews. Attribution models. Impact had to be quantified before it was believed. Now I’m at a tiny startup. Last week, a customer Slacked: “Magemetrics saves me days on campaign reports.” Following the rebrand, a prospect opened the site and said: “Okay. This feels serious.” These calls felt different: less explaining, fewer objections, more trust. No attribution model. No presentation. Just behavior changing in real time. Here’s what’s different: In enterprise, proof arrives as numbers. In startups, proof shows up as decisions. Enterprise feedback arrives filtered and quarterly; startup impact is immediate. Doubt slows deals. Confidence speeds them up. Immediacy forces clarity. You take fewer performative bets. You stop optimizing for presentations. You design to remove doubt. Because you’re not defending slides — you’re shaping what happens next.

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Is healthcare's obsession with "user-centric design" mostly performative theater? Here's what the metrics tell us... Every health tech company claims to be patient-focused. Yet 73% of healthcare apps are abandoned within 30 days. Compare that to consumer apps at 21% abandoned rates. The inconvenient truth: We're not actually designing for users. We're designing for buyers. When did you last see a health tech demo focused on patient experience rather than clinical workflows? When did a procurement process include usability scores alongside security compliance? I bet... Never. The real problem isn't technical capability. It's incentive misalignment. We optimize for: • Buyer approval over user delight • Implementation speed over adoption rates • Provider efficiency over patient empowerment Here's what actual user-centric healthcare looks like: - Zero training required for basic functions - Works flawlessly on a 5-year-old smartphone - Reduces anxiety instead of creating it The companies quietly revolutionizing healthcare aren't the ones with the biggest compliance teams. They're the ones treating patients like customers, not case numbers. Stop calling it user-centric until users actually want to use it. Which healthcare products in your experience truly prioritize patient needs over provider preferences? #HealthTech #DigitalHealth #UXDesign #HealthcareInnovation #PatientExperience

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This is what investing in AI in design looks like. As with many other job families, the design industry focuses on what might the impact of AI be: will it lower the quality with slop? Will it replace humans? Etc But I don't see much focus on to understand and really capitalise on the potential AI brings to design. We are largely treating it as any other tool: a way to get incrementally better. At best it's a short course for the designers, at worst it's expecting designers to already know how to use it. But AI has the potential for making radical shifts and leaps. I'd love to hear, and learn, from anyone who is making significant strides to drive AI transformation in design.

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What actually determines a design system's longevity is who believes in it. The latest episode of "The Question" is packed with insights and wisdom from Ben, Hannah and the community, on lasting design system infrastructure. Here are three highlights for me: 1️⃣ Longevity is a community problem, not a tooling problem. -- The most consistent insight across practitioners: teams that last invest in awareness and belonging, not just components. Showcases run by the people using the system (not the DS team). Hands-on labs. Moments that make it feel useful rather than imposed. If people don't understand what you're building or why, the infrastructure doesn't matter. 2️⃣ Framework-agnostic architecture is a survival decision. -- For small teams in multi-framework environments, writing once and outputting to multiple packages is the only realistic path at scale. But technical correctness isn't the hard part. Developer experience has to be good enough that adoption feels worth the switching cost, because you're asking already-stretched teams to replace what they built with what you built. 3️⃣ The most effective adoption strategy might be invisible. -- One team built an AI workflow from Figma to production code, with design system usage embedded into the output by default. When adoption is a byproduct of speed rather than a compliance request, teams don't resist it. That's a principle worth applying well beyond AI tooling. 🎧 The Question, Ep. 070: Lasting Design System Infrastructure https://lnkd.in/erTp6QjD

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GV (Google Ventures) have a long history of hiring former designers and design leaders to support their portfolio companies. Folks like Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, Kate Aronowitz, Daniel Burka, Braden Kowitz, Vanessa Cho, and Tom Hulme. In my latests podcast interview, Kate Aronowitz explains why this is, and what designers bring to the table. Interestingly it's not about craft, but rather the way they see the world with a beginners mind.

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I posted about the value of UX for charging companies and a simple way to audit it yourself. Ideally you bring data to the problem as well. BUT— it may not be data you have at your fingertips today. I saw this all the time leading data science at IDEO. The data that is produced by normal business processes and that's easy to measure and quantify often has blind spots, and it may not be all the data you need in order to know how to improve. This is true in charging as well. OCPP won't tell you if a parking spot is covered in snow, or if the area feels sketchy after 10pm. Transactions won't tell you if the clip on the plug is busted and won't retain it in the vehicle properly, or that the button on your add funds flow in your app is bugged. Logs won’t tell you about the driver that tried to charge when cell connectivity was down or who got confused about adapters and left. Customers will, if you listen. Many networks see support as a necessary evil, something to hold at arms length, pay as little as possible for. It's hard to argue. Cost savings are important, especially in this day and age. But support conversations are one of the primary channels you have to hear from customers, directly or indirectly, about what part of your experience needs work. Reviews are another, and savvy networks create their own proactive feedback channels as well. In the past, getting valuable insights out of this data was a slow and highly manual endeavor. But AI is making this easier than it's ever been. This is what ChargeMate is here to help with. Whether it's using our support AI agent to hear from more drivers and solve their problems (3-5x more drivers chat than call in our experience), or using one of our new AI-powered workflows to comb through reviews, extract documentation from existing support tickets, or solicit driver feedback, we can help you identify what needs attention while saving costs at the same time. Sound interesting? Let’s chat!

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Christina Farr making an excellent point about 'Tourist' founders, investors and advisors jumping ship for Healthcare and HealthTech to Healthcare AI seeking short term riches and returns ..

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Left inspired by yesterday’s panels at “Human-Centered Design in a Machine-Centered Future” co-organized by TEDAI San Francisco and IDEO. Below are some of my key takeaways. 🎯 Human Agency vs. Technological Determinism: There‘s a dangerous rhetoric of inevitability around AI, but it‘s simply not true—we can change the narrative. We‘re in danger of force-fitting our definitions of good art, culture, and society to match the AI narrative—instead of the other way around. Ovetta Sampson made an important observation: “Unless we are intentional about creating the future we want, we will repeat the inequities of the world we live in today.” 🖐️ Embodied vs. Disembodied Intelligence: Ed Newton-Rex brought up the creative cost of delegation. When we hand off our drafts to AI, we lose something essential in the process. Going a step further, the conversation shifted to how writing or drawing by hand stimulates thinking in ways that computers (not to mention AI copilots) cannot replicate. Our intelligence is embodied—and we’re abstracting it away without considering the cost. 💰 Scarcity vs. Abundance Mindsets: Alvin Wang Graylin (汪丛青) attempted to reframe the entire debate: instead of a scarcity mindset and fighting over limited resources, we need to shift to an abundance mindset. Instead of thinking about theft and leverage, we should think instead about the value of co-creation. This vision offers a different path forward where AI will enable everyone to join the creator class. ⚡ Productivity vs. Creativity: A long time ago, personal computers were supposed to make our lives easy and luxurious. We may be facing the same false promise with AI. The question isn’t whether AI will boost productivity—it’s whether those gains will create “another era of drudgery” or actually free us up to pursue activities that feed our curiosity, creativity, and sense of purpose. 🎨 Design is a Choice: There was a repeated emphasis on “Design Matters.” Design choices today will determine whether AI makes us addicted or empowered, stupider or smarter. Pat Pataranutaporn asked: “Are we engineering our own stupidity? We’re reading less and have lower attention spans—if we aren’t learning, what kind of society will we become?” David Webster argued the other side, that AI can actually help us learn faster than ever before. Tools like #NotebookLM let us get smart on any topic quickly, multiplying our human potential rather than diminishing it. The question that will define our future is: What kind of people will we become with AI? The answer lies not in the technology itself, but in how intentionally we design our relationship with it. How are you thinking about the relationship between humans and AI? #AIUX #FutureOfWork #HumanCenteredDesign

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