How to Hire the Best HealthTech Website Development Company?
Daria Lymanska
CEO & Founder
April 15, 2024
2
min read
The medical field has been developing for ages, but over the past twenty years, we’ve seen the flourishing of healthtech. And it’s not surprising: this technology is a game-changer for patient care, workflow, and life-saving.
The healthcare industry includes producing portable devices to monitor vital signs and online medical consultations provided by modern digital health solutions. And, similarly, every private clinic should have a top-notch website where patients can book an appointment with a doctor.
What are the roles of a medical site?
A communication tool with patients. A site can be easily googled. Also, it contains information about available services and specialists. Thus, it makes it much easier for clients to reach out to you.
A communicational channel. Internet marketing is one of the most effective tools for attracting customers, but you need a web resource to use it. Thanks to a site, you will be able to find customers among users of search engines and social networks.
An image-maker of your organization. You need to give a good impression to make others want to collaborate.
A source of getting feedback and statistical data. Thanks to analytics systems, you can track changes in behavioral factors, perform A/B tests, and monitor the effectiveness of various traffic channels.
So, a medical website must be very comprehensive, secure, and accessible at all hours. To achieve this, it’s important to involve specialists responsible for different aspects of the work at each stage of the healthcare website development.
Key Considerations When Hiring
Before you hire a health tech development company, it’s essential to ensure their team has the necessary hard and soft skills. The task of the dev team will be to make the site appealing to users and customize traffic channels. In turn, the site owner should provide the essential information and approve tasks in time to avoid excess of the final healthcare website development cost and pauses in the work process.
What should you bear in mind while searching web development companies for healthcare?
Relevant experience. The more projects related to medicine they have, the better.
Technical knowledge. Find out if the developers know the required programming languages.
Communication skills. Website development is a team effort not just for the performers but also for the customers, so soft skills are vital here.
Ability to comply with regulatory requirements. The company must know about HIPAA compliance and other legal provisions.
Experience in HeathTech
The company you want to hire must understand your business. That’s why your healthtech development company must be experienced with medical data and technology. Look for the company that has previously worked on similar projects. They could have a background in developing electronic health record systems, medical visualization software, remote care platforms, or other products related to healthtech website development. Companies with extensive experience in this field are well prepared to meet the specific demands of healthcare software development.
Technical Expertise
The company’s tech team should have certain skills required for medical website development. First of all, they need to ensure the security of the medical website. Secondly, it must be able to scale. This will allow you to upgrade a site following current changes like adding new services, functions, categories, or sections. It will also increase functionality and optimize it based on customer requests and company interests.
Another important aspect is defining the right tech stack. The developers must be able to choose a health tech website development programming language that meets business needs. The most popular ones are HTML/CSS, PHP, Python, JavaScript, Java, Ruby, and Swift. The final choice of one or another development tool must be made according to the goal of creating responsive web design and providing a brilliant user experience. The company should also have a skilled designer who can transfer your brand identity into the website’s UX/UI design.
Regulatory Compliance
A team working on a health tech site must guarantee its security as patients leave their personal data there – this can be ensured by its knowledge of how to create a secure website for healthcare providers. Specifically, such websites must meet HIPAA regulations and other confidentiality rules in health care, such as GDPR and PCI-DSS. Make sure the company is aware of these norms and can perform HIPAA-compliant website development.
Communication and Collaboration
Healthcare website development requires ongoing communication between the client and the contractor. For example, in the beginning, you and the tech team will negotiate on choosing the right CMS for the website. Consider hiring only those who are accessible, transparent, and timely. If there are no meetings or any other forms of communication, move on to the next candidates.
Partner’s Reliability
Make sure the chosen company is trustworthy. It must be present on social media and have its website with a portfolio. Seek for clients' feedback on special resources, forums, and social networks. This way, you’ll quickly see what prior customers have said about a company's service delivery. And, if some field-specific media have published case studies about the company’s work, it’s a very good sign.
Compliance with Your Request for Proposal
Once you decide on a candidate, it’s time to write a project proposal. Health tech website development proposals include stating the project’s objective, target audience, budget, and other features specific to your project. This way, the potential company will understand your business needs better and be able to provide an individual proposal.
Impression After Personal Interviewing
A key to successful collaboration lies in communication. Interviewing health tech web developers will allow you to test their understanding of your specific demands and the concept of the website.
Crucial moments to clarify during interviews:
Ask for details about their experience. Get candidates to talk about a project related to health tech they have participated in. Go into detail to assess their role and expertise.
Ask about the development process. Give them thorough questions to test their technical knowledge and figure out the workflow. You can also provide them with a test task to evaluate their skills firsthand.
Uncover their management style. Ask if the team has worked on any cross-functional projects. Look for leadership qualities like guiding, empowering others to succeed, and handling conflicts constructively.
Find out the team membership. Alongside those who are usually present in the technical team, such as engineers, QA testers, and tech leads, there should also be a UX designer.
Ask who will own the code. It’s much better for you if the web development companies for healthcare offer a total handover. Yet, the agreement may include a clause that allows the contractor to keep the code. The worst thing that can happen might be that the company charges you more money because of the constant glitches they fix.
Question what happens if the team fails to meet the deadline. Find out how the company can repay for the lost time.
Portfolio
Ask companies included in a shortlist to demonstrate their previous projects. A voluminous portfolio is usually a sign of a company that has extensive experience. This way, you’ll wind out what they’re capable of. The portfolio will show you if the team can manage challenging projects and meet high regulatory standards. Also, it will show how good and user-friendly their software is. And, naturally, pay strong attention to websites related to the medical field.
Conclusion
Ideally, a website solves several problems of a healthcare business at once. First, it is one of the most effective tools for attracting new clients. It also acts as a channel of communication with existing patients, forms the image of your organization, and allows you to get feedback and collect your customers’ data. All this is possible if the site is developed by the pros. That’s why you should be very picky when you want to hire a health tech development company. Follow the recommendations listed above to find the perfect fit.
Why do healthcare providers need a well-developed website?
A well-developed website helps patients book appointments, find service information, and enhance your clinic’s reputation. It also acts as a marketing tool and feedback channel.
Why is experience important for a web development company in the healthcare industry?
Healthcare websites have specific needs like data security and regulatory compliance. A company with healthcare experience knows how to meet these requirements effectively.
What role does UX/UI design play in a healthcare website?
Good UX/UI design makes the website easy to navigate, aligns with your brand, and ensures patients have a smooth experience when booking appointments or accessing information.
Why is it important for a HealthTech website to be scalable?
Scalability ensures your website can grow as your business expands, allowing you to add new features, services, and functionality over time without major overhauls.
If your website has existed for a long time, this is a reason to think about redesigning it. The fact is that web development trends are constantly changing, and the things that attracted users around five years ago may seem high and dry today.
In particular, several years ago, the independent web resource GoodFirms conducted a survey among designers to find the reasons why users leave their websites. It turns out that about 40% of respondents were sure that this was due to the outdated design. Do you need to look for more explanations as to why you need a redesign? If you don’t, this article is for you.
What Is a Website Redesign?
Website redesign is a modernization that involves changes in the design, content, and functionality of a specific web resource. There may be not only a change in color scheme but also in the website’s structure, which also implies a certain optimization of the HTML code.
Redesign can be done every two years, or less often, every three or four years. However, when the appearance of your website remains the same for five years or more, your users are likely to begin to believe that your business is idle and, therefore, will likely choose a more successful competitor.
Why Is a Site Redesign Important?
Let's imagine that when you launched your website first, it generally satisfied its visitors. However, after a few years, its traffic began to gradually decline, although the quality of your service and/or goods did not decrease. Most likely, the problem is that your website’s design is outdated. Although this may seem to be the only reason why you need a redesign, there are several other reasons that also lead to it:
You are going to migrate your website to a new engine;
Despite regularly taking SEO measures, your website is not ranking well in search engines;
You are planning to expand your audience reach and scale your business;
Your company has rebranded, and now, this should apply to your website as well;
You are entering a new market;
Your product range or the concept of its promotion has completely changed.
Why You Need a Website Redesign Project Plan
In general, there are many goals that you can achieve through a redesign. The benefits of website redesign include improving the user experience, rebranding, increasing reputation, optimizing traffic indicators, conversions, etc., involving the website in marketing campaigns, and so on.
At the same time, whatever goal you pursue, its achievement must be consistent, and each step must be justified from the point of view of business and available resources. Otherwise, you will act chaotically, and the result of these actions will most likely not live up to your desires. To prevent this from happening, you actually need a project plan for website redesign.
How to Redesign a Website: Applying Key Principles for Success
Now, it's time to find out what five sequential phases the correct redesign strategy includes.
Setting Clear Objectives
Any well-thought-out project plan for website redesign implies matching goals and needs to redesign tasks to be completed.
Understanding the Need for Redesign
At the very beginning, you will need to correctly identify the reasons for the redesign. For example, this could be an outdated design, a not-mobile-friendly user experience, the functionality update and complicated website structure related to it, etc. You need to describe all these reasons as precisely as possible to make it easier for your team of designers (and possibly developers) to decide on the scope of work.
Defining Your Goals
Once the reasons are clear, you can define SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals. Special cases of such goals may be increasing traffic, achieving better conversion rates, improving user experience, etc.
Research and Preparation
At this stage, you will have to complete more complex tasks that will lay a solid foundation for your team's further work. They will also help you understand how competitive your website is at the moment and which aspects of it have the highest priority.
Analyzing the Current Website
Your website is probably already connected to some analytics system where you can evaluate the dynamics of its traffic, conversion rates, abandoned carts, and so on. Thus, you have to collect this data, evaluate its changes for better or worse over the last year, and compare these changes with seasonal and local trends in your niche to get the most objective assessment of your website.
Competitor Analysis
You will also have to analyze the websites of your main competitors to understand in what they are good at and what needs optimization. Through this analysis, you will be able to prioritize the tasks that your technical team will have to deal with.
Target Audience Identification
Refine your audience data—this is especially important if you're looking to enter new markets or scale your online business. However, even if your goals are less ambitious, you'll still need to refresh information about your potential customers—their demographics, pain points, goals, needs, etc.
Content Audit
Finally, you should conduct a global content audit—for this, you'll probably need the help of SEO experts. Specifically, if your website's main problem is low search engine rankings, it's likely due to poor-quality content that will need to be optimized or replaced with a new one.
Planning and Strategy Development
Actually, you are left with the last steps before you hand over your website rebuild project to your technical team.
Site Structure and Navigation
Based on the key indicators of your website displayed in the analytics, you will be able to determine which of your website’s navigation elements and structure components need to be changed.
Visual Design Considerations
If your current website seems visually outdated, you will need to identify relevant examples from your competitors and indicate which graphical aspects of their websites you like the most.
Technical Requirements
If you find that your website's performance is suffering or, for example, the website itself is not fully displayed on some mobile devices, optimizing these aspects will require the participation of web developers.
SEO and Content Strategy
If the problem is the poor quality of the content (lack of necessary keywords in the texts, low-quality images, outdated data, etc.), you will need to involve SEO specialists in the project as well.
The Design and Development Process
Now, it’s the practical part of your website redesign roadmap, which requires the involvement of technical specialists and the designers themselves.
Wireframing and Prototyping
Now that the project is in the hands of the designers, they can start creating wireframes according to your requirements for the updated version of the website. As your requirements become more detailed, they will build prototypes based on these wireframes.
Design Mockups
An intermediate stage between the development of wireframes and prototypes can be the creation of mockups. Essentially, these are medium-fidelity sketches of your project that, like wireframes, schematically demonstrate the main components of the website but already have a pre-defined color palette and some graphic objects. Typically, this intermediate stage is necessary for websites with a complex and/or non-trivial structure.
Development and Coding
If your site requires migration to a new CMS or you have discovered problems in the previous stages that can only be solved through changes in its program code, you will have to involve developers to eliminate these bottlenecks.
Testing and Quality Assurance
And, of course, don’t forget to staff your project team with quality assurance specialists who will check if the updated version of your website works correctly before it goes public.
Launch and Post-Launch Strategy
Finally, you can begin preparing for the website relaunch.
Preparing for Launch
If your updated website looks the way you like and all the inconsistencies have been ironed out, it makes sense to check its effectiveness on the representatives of its target audience. This way, you may get additional insights about optimization that can still be implemented before your website’s launch.
Launching the Website
Now, developers can upload a new version of the website to the hosting. It may require you to choose a new hosting provider or a new tariff plan from the old one—this makes sense if you plan to expand the reach of your audience.
Post-Launch Activities
This stage will last exactly until the next redesign. In particular, you will have to monitor the analytics of your update to see whether the new key indicators meet your original business requirements. You will also need to constantly work on your website's SEO by regularly uploading new, relevant content.
Conclusion
We hope that in this article, we have helped you understand how to website revamp, and now, you can begin this procedure as consciously as possible. If you are looking for specialists ready to take on not only the planning task but also the implementation of your redesign project, feel free to contact us, and our team will bring your most ambitious goals to life within your budget and timeline.
If you have a great idea, and it involves creating something innovative, aiming at solving standard problems using unconventional methods and tools, it’s probably worth bringing it to life gradually. This way, you will move from priority features to secondary ones, relying on real users’ opinions—both positive and negative ones. Actually, here, we described the essence of the MVP development process. Below, we will explain its definition and check its benefits and specifics of implementation.
Understanding MVP in Software Development
If you are going to build an MVP, you should first understand exactly what it is.
In a nutshell, a minimum viable product (MVP) is a product that has basic functionality to satisfy some needs of the target audience. Its main goal is to attract first users, determine their impression of interacting with it, and think through a further strategy for its development.
Key advantages of an MVP approach
When you decide to build MVP, you get the following benefits:
Ability to confirm or refute hypotheses about the product
Attracting investors through accelerated confirmation of the idea’s viability
Help in analyzing the target audience
Reduction of financial risks
Development costs reduction thanks to proper prioritization of the product’s features
Faster engagement of the target audience, long before the launch of a finalized product version
Early bug fixing
Reduced time to market
Thus, by resorting to MVP building, you can start to earn faster. At the same time, the development of a minimum marketable product is especially relevant for startups as it allows you to find out the real needs and pain points of your target audience in practice.
Developing Your MVP: Focus on Core Functionality
Now, let's find out what the MVP process looks like.
Identify your target audience
No matter how universal your solution is, its audience still has something in common, be it goals, pain points, demographics, or something else. Therefore, before you hone your product concept, you will have to define who it will be intended for—that is, conduct user research. To do this, you need to draw up a detailed portrait of the client—gender, age, place of work, hobbies, income level, desires, needs, problems, etc.
Come up with core functionalities
Surely, you have already seen a picture on the Internet that reflects the essence of MVP—a skateboard gradually turning into a car. Formally, this means that you need to understand which functions will be fundamental, that is, without which no user will be able to implement the task assigned to your product. These will be your MVP requirements. Then, as you receive reviews from real users, you can add features of less priority that make your solution more usable than the previous version.
Prioritize correctly
Before you start to develop MVP, think about which stages of your project are the most resource-intensive—they will need to be implemented first. As resources become available, you can assign lower-priority tasks to individual members of your team. Actually, this prioritization will determine your product roadmap. Thanks to this approach, you will eliminate downtime in your work processes and will be able to bring the MVP software launch date closer.
Define tools and resources
Finally, you should determine what tools you will use in development and what resources will be needed for this. We are talking about programming languages, wireframing and software development tools, platforms for project management, business messengers, etc.
Iterating Based on User Feedback
Any MVP strategy consists of iterations—that is, constant repetition of the development cycle based on user feedback received after testing its previous version. Let's look at the nuances of implementing these iterations.
Data collection methods
Depending on the resources available, you can collect data from real users by applying different methods. This could be live interviews, questionnaires, A/B product testing, supervised and unsupervised testing, and so on.
Feedback analysis and prioritization
Once the data has been collected, you will need to identify which reviews should be processed first and which ones can be postponed. In fact, everything is simple: the highest priority belongs to those that indicate that the user cannot perform the target action in your solution at all. Second in priority are reviews related to the complexity of the functionality—that is, those in which users claim that they did not immediately figure out what to click, or that they had to spend too much time to perform a simple operation. Everything else that does not affect the accessibility and simplicity of functionality can be optimized later, in subsequent updates.
The importance of iteration
Since building MVP for startups involves creating a primitive version of a full-scale solution, most likely, you will have to deal with a lot of negative feedback. Some will not like the typography, some will find the navigation inconvenient, and some will not even understand what actions need to be performed to achieve the goal. This is okay. At the same time, those who leave you reviews now are likely to use your solution after its optimization, too—therefore, in order not to lose their loyalty, you should constantly improve it. This will show your audience that you appreciate their opinion and that they also contribute to your project.
Launching Your MVP: Getting It Out There
Each iteration that brings your MVP closer to its finalized version must fulfill a specific business task—this could be confirming or refuting hypotheses, testing functionality, attracting users, choosing the best version from several proposed ones, identifying competitive advantage, etc.
This means that with each new iteration, you may have to take different approaches to each stage of the development cycle, from MVP planning, as well as choosing development tools and startup methodology, to testing and determining methods for collecting user feedback. Ultimately, this flexibility will open up further development prospects for your minimum viable prototype and reduce the risks of its possible failure.
Conclusion
Generally speaking, the benefits of creating an MVP from a business point of view cannot be overestimated. This approach helps reduce the risks of failure, attract investors, ensure a more moderate expenditure of the project budget, evaluate its competitiveness, and much more. In addition, it allows you to quickly enter the market because instead of the time-consuming development, you can spend less time creating its primitive version and, thus, more quickly test its viability and prospects in practice.
If you are just considering the possibility of implementing your business idea in MVP format, feel free to contact us. We will take on all stages of its implementation, from concept approval to usability testing and launch, and will repeat iterations until it transforms into a full-fledged product.
In recent years, mental health has taken center stage globally. Currently, approximately 792M people globally have mental issues and lack access to traditional therapy due to financial constraints or societal stigma. The best way to solve the issue—is to go digital. That is where mental health app development comes into play. It cuts costs and makes mental health available to everybody around the globe.
As to the market, in 2024 alone, the app market saw expansion to approximately $7.38B. In a decade, forecasts promise growth up to nearly 10% annually, scorching $17.52B.
If you are ready to build a new solution—now is the perfect time to start. Below, we will explain how to develop a mental health app, share standout mental health app ideas, and highlight key factors to keep in mind.
Why mental health apps are in demand
Even though people have faced mental disorders throughout the entire history, only in recent years solving these problems become normal and generally accepted. And it won’t stop. Let’s numbers speak louder—according to 2019 alone, the global capitalization for the global antidepressant market was estimated at $11.67B. By 2027, the market promises to grow to a record $18.29B.
Of course, depression is not the only issue. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there is a growing tendency for PTSD, anxiety, and OCD (due to economic instability, military conflicts, pandemics, as well as personal problems).
Additionally, the fast-paced world daily brings panic attacks, triggers, and burnout (prevalent among doctors, teachers, and IT workers). Youngsters are prone to issues, too; among the most “popular”—are low self-esteem and social isolation.
Financial constraints and a lack of free time put hefty pressure on those who need a traditional approach to addressing mental problems. Then, an in-person visit to a psychologist or psychiatrist becomes a real luxury. But what if there is a more efficient, accessible alternative? That’s where developing your mental health app comes in.
Business and monetization models of mental health applications
For mental health app development, the following monetization models have proven to be the most profitable:
Fee for the services of real psychologists. According to this model, the application acts as a platform, connecting users with professional psychologists, coaches, or therapists (similar to a marketplace with reviews, ratings, cost of services, and other attributes). In this case, the application earns the commission from each transaction (usually 15-30%).
Subscription-based model. This model has a fixed fee for regular access to content and/or services for a certain period (month, year, etc.). If your app has diverse content and functions, offer multiple pricing models. This lets users pick a plan that suits their needs best.
Freemium. These models give free access to basic functionality, with particular features to be paid. Usually, there are personalized recommendations, access to exclusive courses, advanced progress analytics, etc.
One-time purchase. This model involves a one-time purchase of the application, after which the user has access to all its functionality.
In-app purchases. Here, the basic functionality is available for free, but additional materials or services are paid (personalized plans, unique selections of tracks for meditation, etc.).
Ad-supported model. In this case, app is free but includes built-in advertising (banners, videos, native advertising, etc.). At the same time, to improve the user experience, you can offer an option to turn off ads for an extra fee.
B2B model. This model translates into you selling licenses to companies with internal programs to support employee mental health.
Selling merch. This model focused on branded wellness merchandise promotion via scented candles, self-improvement guides, and mindfulness notebooks.
Top mental health apps on the market
Now, let's explore the most popular mental health apps. Perhaps they'll give you extra inspiration for your mental health app development project.
Headspace
Endorsed by the editors of the New York Times and 2.8 million users globally, Headspace is a product of the mental health company of the same name. Its core functionality includes meditations dedicated to improving sleep quality, relaxation, and cultivating mindfulness. They also offer courses on meditation, managing borderline emotional states, and more. Moreover, the platform has scientifically proven results in stress reduction and a user-friendly interface.
Calm
The Calm app is loved for high-quality content and a simple and intuitive interface. by 4.5 million (2023). And it is rightfully so. This app spins everything, from meditation sessions and effective breathing exercises to audio programs that are good for falling asleep faster. As for monetization, there is a free version with limited access. Full access to functionals is only available with a paid subscription.
BetterHelp
BetterHelp has over 2 million users and connects with licensed therapists via text, phone, and video. Patients must pay a fee to continue their subscription and can also volunteer to donate to others. This app goes far beyond mood issues. It covers complex disorders and symptoms, such as clinical depression and PTSD.
Talkspace
Talkspace provides online therapy with licensed therapists through a tiered subscription model (with health insurance coverage). Moreover, this app is ideal for managing medication treatment and has many formats for direct communication with psychotherapists (including cases of emergencies).
Moodfit
Founded in 2018, Moodfit has become the top mood assistant for more than a million people worldwide. It has personalization options, customized mood data analysis through visualization tools, and mood-improving recommendations. In addition, the app has cognitive-behavioral therapy exercises as a handy and entertaining way to deal with mental issues.
Woebot
Woebot is a free AI-driven bot founded by Dr. Alison in 2017. It is based on text format and has cognitive behavioral therapy methods. Initially, this software was intended for youngsters in college and graduate school, but today, people of all ages use it.
Sanvello
Sanvello, created by Dale Beermann and Chris Goettel, provides evidence-based CBT techniques and tools to support mental well-being. Since 2015, the app has offered free features and premium content through subscription or insurance.
Key components of a mental health app
Let's determine what mental health app features should be included by default.
Registration/authentication/authorization system
The main functionality of this system includes two types of registration: full-fledged, with the user’s email, and fast, through social networks (this is implemented through the OAuth 2.0 protocol, which is suitable for integration with Google, Apple, and Facebook).
For better protection of user data, use two-factor authentication and store hashed passwords. This can be done, for example, using bcrypt. Additionally, allow password recovery via email or SMS and register log-in/logout events for a data security audit.
User profile
Include the functionality for adding, saving, and changing personal information (name, age, mental health goals), maintaining the user’s activity history (exercise completed, courses, sessions with psychologists, etc.), and privacy settings (public/anonymous profile). Typically, profile data is stored in a relational database (PostgreSQL/MySQL); it is also necessary to set a clear separation between public and private user data.
Home screen and navigation
The home screen should feature a clickable menu, allowing users to update content based on their settings. You can also add push notifications (for example, using Firebase Cloud Messaging). As for the menu, place meditations, psychological tests, stretching, and yoga exercises in text, video, and/or audio format. You can also include real-time communication with specialists via text, voice, and video chats.
Use cloud platforms such as AWS S3 to ensure scalable content storage. If your application is media-rich—add media streaming via HLS.
Finally, localize content for users from different regions if you plan to maximize your target audience.
In-app payment system
If you plan to monetize your app through subscription payments or in-app purchases, integrate App Store and Google Play to process payments via the In-App Purchase API. You can deploy the web version via Stripe. Once everything is ready, provide access control based on the paid features.
Analytics and recommendations
Place functionality for tracking user progress and boosting their motivation (e.g., mood changes) and recommendations based on analytics. The latter makes sense to implement using machine learning models (e.g., based on TensorFlow).
What to consider before creating a mental health app?
The basic functionality of a mental health app goes far beyond making it popular and profitable. Therefore, to maximize your chances of success, consider the following factors before creating a mental health app.
Competitive environment
Usually, it involves the user interface, content accessibility, and the quality of the exercises/recommendations. Notably, the Calm application (sleep stories) and BetterHelp (online chat with therapists) are prime examples of such.
Analysis of bad ratings — matters too. In particular, users usually complain about the high subscription costs, lack of personalization, navigation problems, and negative experiences with customer support service. You can use it to make a competitive feature.
Target audience
Your target audience — above all. This can be young people (18-35 years old) who need an effective solution for stress management and improving sleep quality. Or the elderly might be searching for a more convenient professional in-home/palliative care format. Finally, it could be corporate clients who want to implement programs for the mental support of their employees.
Ultimately, user needs may vary. Based on the insights, determine the preferred content format (e.g., meditation, CBT, DBT, video sessions) and presentation style.
Regulatory requirements and user data privacy
The most common and comprehensive regulations are GDPR and HIPAA regulations, which govern the processing of personal data and medical information. To comply with them under the mental health app development process, you must implement data encryption (via SSL/TLS) and ensure transparent privacy policies.
Marketing strategy
To attract a broad user base, create a unique selling proposition. This can be achieved through AI diagnostics, integration with wearable devices via IoT, or simply offering a lower price than competitors. Next, point out the comprehensive marketing strategy. Select the right promotion channels: social media, partnerships with therapists, or advertising through user reviews. is essential for developing a comprehensive marketing strategy. Additionally, to retain users — regularly update content.
Testing and feedback
It’s better to subject an app with a diverse target audience to beta testing. To do so, find the first users who could be your potential consumers, gather feedback, and optimize the app based on their input.
Financial costs and ROI
Finally, estimate the project budget. It should include development, marketing, updates, customer support, and infrastructure maintenance. Given the costs, you must also estimate how long it will take till your project is profitable. It might be useful for future investors.
What are the main phases of mental health app development?
Now that you have so many insights at hand, you can start the mental health app development process. Let's find out how this happens in practice.
Ideation
First, define the problem. It is the mental health issues that trouble your audience and their goals. Obviously, your app should cover it. The solution might vary. It could reduce stress, help with sleep, or heal depression. Moreover, in the very first stage — conduct a competitive analysis. This will help identify niche leaders, find the target audience, and formulate a USP.
Planning
At this stage of the mental health app development process, you will already have enough information to determine the main functionality of your teletherapy application. Select a technology stack (or at least decide whether it will be a native or cross-platform solution), and clarify the business model. Based on this, you can calculate an approximate project budget.
Design
From now on, your mental health app developers can start creating prototypes and gradually turn them into a full-fledged design. Note that to develop mental health apps, you must use WCAG 2.0 guidelines, which ensure all users can access the app's functionality. Once the mental health app design is complete, test usability with real users to refine the navigation.
Development
The mental health app development process is divided into frontend and backend. The first includes the implementation of the user part of the software, and the second – everything that happens on the server side. As individual modules are ready, your mental health app developers will need to perform unit and integration testing to prevent difficult-to-fix bugs in the future.
Testing
Once the entire codebase is ready, QA specialists and testers will create test cases to ensure each function works correctly and the app performs well under high user load. This testing also ensures that all user actions within the app are secure and protect their privacy.
Release
Now that testing is complete, and all detected bugs are fixed, you can publish the application in the App Store and/or Google Play (your development team will first need to check whether it meets all platform requirements). After publishing, you can launch an advertising campaign to attract the first users, as well as set up tracking tools like Google Analytics and Amplitude to analyze user behavior.
Post-release support
At this mental health app development stage, you must check your application's speed and stability regularly. You will also need to update/expand its functionality once in a while and optimize what already exists based on feedback from real users. An equally important point is ensuring compatibility with newer versions of iOS/Android.
Challenges in mental health app development
Various challenges can arise during the mental health app development process. Let’s analyze them:
Compliance with regulations. Mental health apps often handle and maintain personal information, including medical data, which imposes obligations on you as a developer to implement GDPR, CCPA, or HIPAA compliance.
Balance between personalization and privacy.
While personalization—is a key feature of these apps, it sometimes conflicts with privacy requirements. To address this, implement advanced mechanisms for anonymizing user data, which will reduce the need to send sensitive information to the server.
Evidence base. The content provided by your app must be scientifically sound and effective for users. To do this, you should either accompany all your treatment plans with individual recommendations from real therapists or initially use approaches with proven effectiveness.
User retention. Many users abandon apps after a few days of use, so your app may need additional retention mechanics (such as gamification and adaptive push notifications) that won’t make users feel guilty or overwhelmed.
Monetization efficiency. Most users search for free or cheap health-related apps. At this point, you need to figure out the balance between user accessibility and the financial sustainability of your software.
How much do developers charge to build a mental health application?
The budget for developing a mental health app development depends on its complexity. So, we can't give exact numbers without first discussing your idea with your development team. But the approximate price ranges from:
$140K for a teletherapy app.
$70K for a simple mood-tracking app with self-monitoring features.
Back-end features, like a database and admin panel, are often overlooked in cost estimates. Developers typically include these in the overall pricing for mental health applications.
If you want to get an estimate of your project, please contact us.
Mental health app design: Best practices
Now, let's analyze several mental health apps (some of which have already been presented to you above) whose design has pleasantly surprised us. Maybe they will help you think better through your mental health app development process.
Headspace
This app is praised for its simple and minimalistic interface, with bright illustrations and smooth animations that literally "nudge" users to meditate with its help. It is also adapted for beginners and is generally perceived as intuitive. This approach to design minimizes anxiety in users and motivates them to meditate regularly.
Calm
The aesthetics of the Calm app lie primarily in the author's images of nature, a soft color scheme, and smooth animations. Together, they create an atmosphere of relaxation - that’s what you need to reduce stress. The app also stands out from its competitors with its "sleep stories" that help people with high anxiety fall asleep faster.
Reflectly
Reflectly's unique design uses artificial intelligence to offer a personalized experience. A clear, user-friendly interface, dynamic prompts, and mood analytics complement this. Together, these features make the app an ideal choice for audiences of all ages.
Daylio
Daylio's intuitive interface is accompanied by simple icons for tracking the user’s mood and activity. Moreover, all these application elements are easy. Developers ensured that performing target actions doesn’t take too long. The application also has a built-in report generator with visualization elements so that users can monitor their progress.
Happify
The Happify app has a gamified interface. It simplifies and informalises the process of improving the psycho-emotional state. The gamification principles here are based on scientific methods to improve mood. So, it does not add to users' cognitive load.
Mental health app ideas to succeed in 2025
In this section, let’s look through the most viral mental health app development ideas so you can pinpoint your project to success:
Integration of AI. AI assistants can help analyze moods and behavior patterns, give personalized recommendations on how to improve well-being, and remind them of any regular upcoming activities, like a daily mood rate system.
Social interaction. This can be implemented via in-app groups of users with similar mental problems where they could share their healing experiences and receive mutual support.
Integration with wearable devices. Through the IoT, you can analyze heart rate, assess stress levels, determine sleep quality, and create a common mental health map.
AR and VR tools integration. It might be useful for relaxation (to enhance the immersion effect).
"Instant help". Through the screen for quick access to ready-made materials and an online chat with a psychotherapist.
Content specially adapted for children and adolescents. For example, these could be games for managing emotions or recommendations for teenagers on dealing with anxiety and stress;
B2B solutions for companies. in particular, these could be psychotherapeutic assistance to prevent burnout.
Highlights of our experience in delivering healthcare solutions
Finally, we'd like to share our experience developing a mental health app. A client approached us to expand their services to the web, specifically to support small businesses recovering from the recession caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The objective was to create a platform to attract a target audience seeking health-related products and services.
For this project, we assembled a team of ten specialists. We chose Ionic and Vue.js for the frontend tech stack, with Laravel for the backend. The result was an online platform featuring a simplified login process, the ability to schedule and reschedule meetings between clients and trainers, an intuitive search for events and classes, role-based access, and an integrated payment system for online payments (covering group and individual courses, as well as event participation). We also implemented live session connections via Google Meet and Zoom. The solution was complemented by a clean, minimalist design with a calming color scheme, ensuring a pleasant and user-friendly experience.
If you want to learn more about this project, please follow this link.
Final thoughts
With this comprehensive guide, you can confidently start looking for specialists who would bring your idea to life. Don’t go any further, as you are already in the right place! Just fill out this form, and our mental health app development team will contact you as soon as possible!
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