Logo van Designing healthcare communication apps

BeterDichtbij

2023-2025

Worked with
Portret van Mans van Oosterhout

Mans

E+dG

Worked with
Portret van Mans van Oosterhout

Mans

E+dG

Designing healthcare communication apps

BeterDichtbij is a healthcare communication platform used by hospitals and clinics across the Netherlands. It supports messaging, video calls and media sharing between patients and healthcare professionals, and includes dedicated tools for professionals who need to manage communication efficiently. I worked on the UX and UI across multiple parts of the ecosystem, with a strong focus on clarity, predictability and communication flows that need to work in real healthcare contexts.

UI Design

Information Architecture

Usability Testing

Wireframing

Mobile App

UX Design

Prototyping

Project details

A large part of the work focused on structuring healthcare communication in a way that supports fast, practical use. Conversations are often short, context-sensitive and time-critical, so the interface needs to make it easy to quickly find the right conversation, understand its status and respond without friction. I worked on features such as search, drafts, conversation management and media sharing, helping create an experience that feels predictable and easy to navigate for both patients and healthcare professionals.

For the professional side of the platform, we worked on a dedicated mobile app that had to support more complex messaging behaviour than a standard chat product. My role covered UX and UI across flows, wireframes, screen design, prototyping and handoff. Together with colleagues, I worked on communication patterns, conversation states, filtering and a broader component system that could support the product as it kept growing. The work was grounded in healthcare practice, including testing with doctors in a hospital setting, which helped validate decisions and sharpen what needed to feel especially clear in use.

1M+

Users in the Netherlands

25K+

Healthcare professionals

#1

Health app in the Dutch App Store

Three smartphones with the same screens showing different facial expressions

Overview

Overview for BeterDichtbij.

UX approach

The core UX challenge was that communication in healthcare needs to feel faster and more dependable than in a casual messaging app. Users often work under pressure, move between conversations quickly and need to understand at a glance what is happening, what has failed and what needs attention. That makes structure, message states and system feedback much more important than in everyday chat products.

A large part of the process focused on the Pro app, where interviews and testing showed that messaging was not just a simple add-on. It was a central workflow that needed to support different types of content, clearer conversation states and more explicit feedback. The selected work below shows how that research was translated into a more structured, reliable communication experience.

More from the project

Man is using his phone to check his email

List view Professional App

List view Professional App for BeterDichtbij.

Person holding a phone with a picture of a woman

Splashscreen

Splashscreen for BeterDichtbij.

Smartphone with the german language on it

Professional dashboard

Professional dashboard for BeterDichtbij.

Person using a phone to check their health status

Filtering Professional App

Filtering Professional App for BeterDichtbij.

Man wearing a blue shirt

Doctor portrait

Doctor portrait for BeterDichtbij.

Smartphone with the app icon on it

App icon

App icon for BeterDichtbij.

Man is using his phone to check his email

List view Professional App

List view Professional App for BeterDichtbij.

Person using a phone to check their health status

Filtering Professional App

Filtering Professional App for BeterDichtbij.

Person holding a phone with a picture of a woman

Splashscreen

Splashscreen for BeterDichtbij.

Man wearing a blue shirt

Doctor portrait

Doctor portrait for BeterDichtbij.

Smartphone with the german language on it

Professional dashboard

Professional dashboard for BeterDichtbij.

Smartphone with the app icon on it

App icon

App icon for BeterDichtbij.

Get in touch

Have a project in mind or a question? Feel free to send me a message and I’ll get back to you.