What has an impact on the success of a digital health product & app? Elvie Pump case study
Creating world-changing products in the area of digital health, MedTech, or FemTech is enormous fun and motivation for us.
These projects realistically change the comfort of life and improve the state of health. But beyond that - what kind of impact do they have exactly?
The best example of the combination of a great product and the application that make up the vast final success is Elvie Pump, a groundbreaking wearable breast pump.
The questions I want to answer today are:
- What has an impact on the success of the product?
- What is Elvie Pump and what made up this success?
- What was challenging in software development?
- What can we suggest after creating an app for a digital health/FemTech product?
LAUNCH IN THE USA AND OTHER COUNTRIES
One of our many exciting and successful projects is Elvie Pump.
The first silent breast pump is a product of Chiaro Technology, a company based in London, United Kingdom. After a great debut in the United Kingdom market and lots of positive opinions and recommendations also by doctors, the company decided to tackle other markets.
Elvie Pump debuted in the USA in January at CES 2019, and it immediately appeared a considerable success.
To name a few awards:
- USA Today Editors’ Choice Award,
- Forbes list of top 5 Baby tech Gadgets,
- WIRED list of coolest stuff seen at CES,
- CES Babylist Best of Baby Tech Award,
- CES 2019 Innovation Honouree in Wearables Tech.
What’s interesting, Elvie Pump was also included in the $100,000 Gift Bag at 2019's Oscars.
Click here for a short video introducing Elvie Pump to the world
Currently, Elvie has 4 products in their portfolio including 3 breastfeeding products and an Elvie trainer. They also plan to develop more products that support women at every life stage.
WHAT HAS AN IMPACT ON THE SUCCESS OF THE PRODUCT?
Imagine a great product. Imagine that an app for that product is not so excellent. What can you say about the whole experience?
It’s a truism, but the success of a product relies on many factors. In the case of a medical device, such as Elvie Pump, the key factors responsible for its success were:
- responding to users’ needs,
- solving a real and widespread problem (in the case of Elvie Pump, an issue shared by all the breastfeeding women),
- matching the product to a specific market,
- price adequate to the users’ purchasing capabilities
- a well-thought-out product, features,
- outstanding and user-friendly design,
- ergonomics and excellent quality materials,
- a working, practical and fast application,
- the entire user experience (from ordering on the page to delivery and use of the product),
- last but not least, an open and honest approach in the marketing context.
Every process of developing a project is different. Yet some guidelines are universal. That's why we have published a HOW TO START YOUR PROJECT WITH A KICK-OFF WORKSHOP.
The success of healthcare application = great product + great application + great experience.
If the product is unsuccessful and has drawbacks, then the app will not help, just as if the product is excellent, but the app does not meet expectations, then the whole user experience is generally weak.
LEAVE YOUR COMPETITORS BEHIND.
CREATE A GREAT PRODUCT
Elvie Pump is the world’s first silent wearable breast pump, created by Elvie, a British FemTech company, renowned for Elvie Trainer.
The company was launched in 2013 and raised $13.2M. In 2019 Elvie closed on $42M in Series B, the most significant funding round in FemTech history at the time. Its mission is to improve women’s lives through smarter technology.
Main features:
- it’s wearable, small, and lightweight and is worn inside a standard nursing bra,
- it’s silent thanks to revolutionary technology,
- it’s hassle-free because of just five parts to clean, without cords,
- smart thanks to Android and iOS apps.
IT SIMPLY HAS TO WORK.
BUILD A GREAT APPLICATION
Exceptionally when you’re using an eHealth app, you merely want it to work immaculately.
GOAL
Our goal was to develop seamless and safe native mobile apps for both iOS & Android platforms that monitor milk volume in real-time, track pumping history for each breast and control the pump remotely.
Besides, we needed to create a pump simulator app, representing all services and characteristics of the BLE interface.
CHALLENGES
Our main technical and product challenges were:
- BLE connection with two pumps at the same time,
- Data synchronization & matching from 2 pumps,
- The marriage of device and user perception of the session,
- Clear, comprehensive user onboarding.
PROCESS & RESULTS
Product & software development took us:
Click here for the detailed Elvie Pump case study on the Untitled Kingdom website.
- We developed a user journey through an exceptionally useful and straightforward onboarding (how to use pumps, wear them comfortably, clean them, etc.).
- We supported the Elvie Pump team in product & design matters.
- For the iOS app, we developed a native BLE implementation.
- For the Android app, we used the Bluetooth library from Polidea.
HOW TO BUILD A SUCCESSFUL HEALTHCARE APP?
In the case of product development and eHealth application, it’s crucial to take care of data security and official regulations (FDA in the USA or MDR in the European Union).
On the other hand, the success of the application is determined by its simplicity of use and adaptation to the needs of the target group.
In the case of the eHealth product, multiple user tests are critical, which will indicate essential functions, directions of change. Don’t forget about the testing of the application, whose task is to identify errors.
I have recently written more about the differences in the development of digital health applications.
WANT TO TURN YOUR CONCEPT INTO A SUCCESSFUL DIGITAL HEALTH BUSINESS?
We have been building software for 14 years now. Most of that time we were developing, healthcare & FemTech apps, e.g. Elvie Pump, Mystery Vibe, and Elvie Trainer. Currently, we’re working on other digital health and MedTech projects that we cannot yet reveal.
If your product or solution solves an important medical problem, just like Elvie Pump does, we’re all eyes and ears to create with you another life-changing app.
Just contact us or have a look at our other software & product development case studies.
