Prescription for Better UX: Designing a Smarter App for Patients

Case Study: Fixing the Front Door: Redesigning T.A.B.S. for a Smarter Check-In Experience

Background: T.A.B.S. (Tracking Assistant for Better Scheduling) was an internal healthcare app developed by a large in-network medical group. The app was designed to serve as a pre-visit tool, allowing patients to check in before appointments, update their medical history, and directly connect to their provider’s digital system—all before ever stepping into the waiting room. T.A.B.S. was meant to streamline front desk operations, reduce paperwork bottlenecks, and improve continuity of care across visits.

The system was intended to be introduced at participating clinics and hospitals, where patients would learn about the app during their check-in or consultation process. While the vision was promising, the execution at launch left much to be desired.

Challenge: When T.A.B.S. was first introduced, the patient experience was anything but seamless. The onboarding flow was clunky, and the app’s interface failed to guide users clearly through necessary check-in steps. Many patients—especially those who were older or less tech-savvy—struggled to complete their intake forms or understand what information was required. Navigation felt clinical and outdated, and the system lacked visual consistency with the healthcare provider’s larger digital ecosystem, causing confusion and hesitation around trust and legitimacy.

Doctors and clinic staff, who were meant to teach patients how to use the app, reported frustrations with the app’s usability themselves, leading to inconsistent rollouts and low adoption rates. Despite good intentions, T.A.B.S. risked becoming another forgotten healthcare tool unless it underwent serious UX transformation.

Approach:

Conducted stakeholder interviews with doctors, front desk staff, and IT leads to understand key workflow breakdowns.
Interviewed patients across age groups to map real-world experiences using the app for the first time in-clinic.
Performed a UX audit of the existing interface to assess its alignment with accessibility and usability standards.
Redesigned the onboarding flow to include simple progress indicators, visual aids, and contextual tooltips.
Created a modular system for intake forms that allowed patients to complete their check-in in digestible, guided steps.
Rebranded the UI with a friendlier tone, updated iconography, and visual consistency with the healthcare network’s brand system.
Tested prototypes with a mix of returning patients and clinical staff, collecting feedback across two design iterations.
Developed an onboarding kit for front desk staff to use when introducing the app to new patients.

Outcome: After launch of the redesigned T.A.B.S., clinics saw a marked improvement in patient check-in efficiency and staff satisfaction:

Patient form completion rates increased by 52% in the first 60 days.
87% of staff reported they felt “more comfortable” teaching patients how to use the app post-redesign.
Average pre-visit check-in time decreased by 3.5 minutes per patient.
Patients noted greater clarity and ease of use, particularly in the restructured intake flow.

Unfortunately, despite the positive results, T.A.B.S. was later deprecated due to shifts in funding and a broader platform consolidation initiative by the healthcare group. Still, the lessons from its UX transformation lived on—many design principles from the updated T.A.B.S. were absorbed into other tools across the network.

Overall: T.A.B.S. started as a well-meaning but underperforming tool, caught between clinical ambition and real-world usability. Through research-driven UX work and collaboration with both patients and healthcare staff, the app evolved into a reliable pre-visit assistant that genuinely improved the care journey. Though the project was sunset, it stands as a case study in how even short-lived tools can make a long-lasting impact when designed with empathy and clarity.