Technology

Digital Healthcare For Gen Z & Millennials

Accenture-2019-Digital-Health-Consumer-Survey

This weekend, I studied an interesting survey published by Accenture Consulting on the prediction of future healthcare for younger consumers. It’s called ‘Accenture 2019 Digital Health Consumer Survey’ and the respondents of this study were from the United States though it essentially provided some wonderful insights into the millennial and Gen Z’s behavioural patterns in general. A striking feature of this survey was the influence of future technology on a wide range of generations beginning with the 20s and the millennials who would become the most influential generation for healthcare consumerism. These are some of my notes from the study.

Distinctive User Groups

At the onset, I came across one of the most distinct categorizations of the user age groups within this survey. The study has been fairly distributed among all classes of consumers including even the generation of consumers who were born in the late 20s. The list of the user group is comprehensive as noted below.

  • Gen Z (born 1997 onward)
  • Millennials (born 1981 to 1996)
  • Gen X (born 1965 to 1980)
  • Baby Boomers (born 1946 to 1964)
  • Silent Generation (born 1928 to 1945)

Prominent Healthcare Insights

Traditional / Non-Traditional Healthcare – doctors, healthcare professionals, clinics, medical centres and doctor’s offices are some of the established types of traditional healthcare services. In contrast, walk-in or retail clinics, outpatient surgery hospitals, virtual health (via the phone, on video or apps), on-demand services or digital therapeutics are some examples of non-traditional healthcare services. [1]

  • Younger consumers are moving away from traditional channels and adopting technology and non-traditional healthcare.
  • The loyalty of younger generation patients is no longer assured, and the providers who heed to the changing dynamics of the consumers would be strongly positioned.
  • Gen Z and Millennials are less likely to have a primary care physician (PCP) compared to Gen X, baby boomers and the silent generation.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”” class=”” cite=”” link=”” color=””]Gen Z is the most likely generation to seek out wellness practices (e.g. yoga, acupuncture) beyond Western medicine. With millennials projected to become the largest generation in 2019, this generation holds the most power to influence future healthcare models.[/perfectpullquote]

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Stoop Offers A Unique Newsletter Experience

Stoop logo
Stoop inbox on the App Store

Just like the rest, I’ve subscribed to a decent number of email newsletters, prominent amongst which are the UX Booth, UX Daily and Indi Young’s awesome effort on content and information architecture called ‘Indi in your Inbox’. Personally, newsletters have provided me with an advantage over normal news and Google or other such websites, in fetching the important ingredients while keeping the ‘noise’ out. The other obvious benefit is the delivery of content to your inbox where one could treat it like any other email and if the content no longer engages you like before you could unsubscribe it with a few clicks. The downside of this transaction is the sharing of your email, and perhaps, without your knowledge, even to third-party vendors depending upon what its privacy policy states (who reads them anyway). So while you might get the academic content you desired you could also end up with deleting or marking more spam than before. There’s always that infamous Gmail trick to filter out spam and to direct newsletters to their specific labels but it’s tedious so why live with all the hustle and bustle of technology when help is around? I am referring to Stoop that I recently put to good use to manage the surge of my newsletters.

I have reviewed apps such as Shazam & Duolingo for their uniqueness, and I am trying to categorise Stoop as a newsletter aggregator app. It’s a smart concept with the benefit of providing the user with a unique ‘yourname@stoop.email’ email and the newsletters come to the inbox inside the app. On the ‘Discover’ tab, it gives a carousel view of popular newsletters, to staff picks and even featuring publishers who regularly publish quality content, although for subscribing to their newsletter it will take you to the publisher’s web page from within the app. Basically, no more sharing your email credentials and living under the fear that your personal info could be compromised, Stoop inbox provides all the answers!

GSLV-III And India’s Human Spaceflight Dream

GSLV Mk.III launching from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.

Always the one to glorify any news relating to advances made in science & space technology, I couldn’t hide my emotions when I read about the successful mission of one of India’s heaviest launch vehicle systems the GSLV-III (aka GSLV Mark III) which placed a communication satellite payload to its GEO orbit, the 3,423 kg (7,546 lb) GSAT 29. However, when this 13-storey tall heavy rocket took-off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center it not only connected the country’s remotest, most crucial parts with a high-speed network it also marked a step closer in achieving the goal of putting ‘Vyomanauts’ into space.

One of the most ambitious ISRO projects is the proposed manned mission into space, that will lift-off on a homegrown launch vehicle; the GSLV-III, with an all-Indian crew. The project has been named Gaganyaan or ‘sky craft’ and a planned date for the launch is 2022. If you want to truly understand the significance of today’s launch you will have to go back to the 90s when India was prevented from gaining access to the cryogenic engine technology by the US from Russia’s Glavkosmos which cited the dual purpose use of the technology and prohibited its transfer under the provisions of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). That pushed back the development of the GSLV rockets by decades. 

The GSLV-III handles payloads of up to 4-5 tons into the GEO orbit with the cryogenic upper stage providing the extra thrust required by the rocket to carry heavier payloads into deeper space. That (second) stage is designated as ‘C-25’ and contains the CE-20 cryogenic rocket engine which was developed indigenously. It’s one of the most powerful cryogenic upper stages in the world today.

India has plans to orbit an Indian crew into space in 2022 and that mission will be accomplished by GSLV-III (nicknamed ‘Bahubali’). Meanwhile, this mighty launch vehicle is also slated to carry another most anticipated lunar probe with a rover landing, the Chandrayaan 2 in January 2019. In all of this, today’s successful flight of the GSLV-III rocket indeed brings India closer to its human spaceflight dream. Vyomanauts! Let’s go!!

Some GSLV-III stats in a nutshell:

  • Height – 43.4 m
  • Mass – 640,000 kg
  • Payload to LEO – 8,000 kg
  • Payload to GTO – 4,000 kg
  • Stages – 3
  • Boosters – 2x S200

Photo – Indian Space Research Organization

2018 Apple MacBook Pro

2018 Was An Impressive Year For Apple

We’re still a few weeks from saying our goodbyes to 2018, and unless Apple is planning to hold an unprecedented fifth keynote this year, 2018 will go down in history as the year when Apple launched a range of innovative products. In the hype and the hoopla that generally accompanies all Apple events; some individuals might even be vindicated in assuming they are just normal product launches, although undoubtedly the company has given us a sneak peek into its future direction of integrating the best-in-class design and tech elements into great-looking, innovative products. In short, there has never been an exciting moment to anticipate which product and tech iteration Apple would demonstrate at their next glittering event.

2018 should set the tone for Apple’s future design roadmap

It was last year when Apple’s approach in breakthrough hardware and software design gained fruition and we finally began to see the perfection with Apple’s design iterations. To cite an example, it was September 2017, when along with the Apple Watch Series 3, the Apple TV 4K, the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, Apple unveiled a revolutionary form factor of its flagship product the iPhone X on its tenth anniversary. The bezel-less design of the iPhone X was what impressed many, a paradigm shift in the iPhone ergonomics that was hitherto accompanied by a home button. The new form factor certainly met the expectations of the markets but then it was also the introduction of the Face ID technology a new generation of secure digital authentication which also made a mark. In a nutshell, that event marked a significant detour in the way products were going to be designed and integrated with advanced technology. In fact, not very long ago, I had mentioned a critical aspect of Apple’s future design roadmap that was supportive of modern & imminent technologies and in the process, they were also influencing behaviour change with user interaction. That being said here’s what I liked from Apple’s ‘orchard’ this 2018, 3 revolutionary product ideas with their underlying hi-tech, that I believe would eventually transform the way we interact with the world around us, and my strategic learning from the product launches so far.

Design Iterations in the form factor for the iMac
Instance of design iterations in the form factor for the iMac

The product design philosophy of Apple could be easily summarized with this insightful quote by French aviator and poet Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, he says, “perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” That sentiment is so deeply ingrained in every aspect of Apple’s design DNA.

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Gutenberg & The Era of Modern Editing

Gutenberg - WordPress

WordPress launched a sleek visual editor and named it after the German publisher Johannes Gutenberg who introduced the printing press in Europe in the 15th century, I thought that naming by WordPress is quite an oxymoron! This would only be my second post in Gutenberg, and ever since I have embraced WordPress blogging as a regular activity I’ve considered it as an art form of composing thoughts that are interspersed with emotions and delivered through phrases. Others might simply label this creative outfall as ‘content’. That it requires the blogger to reconcile with the technology & design first is only a part of a challenging journey in publishing a blog post. But it cannot, rather, technology should not make it any more complicated in putting at risk a writer’s heartfelt endeavour. What about the non-techies then? Bottomline, blogging platforms should aim to minimize any barriers, minimize fuss, and allow writers in publishing their views creatively & constructively.

It’s time to hail WordPress for achieving this goal and for introducing Gutenberg’ which I was amazed to ‘test-drive’ in their latest update. It’s also available as a plugin although Gutenberg would be a standard feature with the future release of WordPress 5.0. Least to say, when I thought about how the Classic editor could be further enhanced WordPress has just provided a modern & sleek replacement. Firstly, I’ve taken a fancy to the metaphor of ‘blocks’ as a WYSIWYG feature, these are movable containers carrying media such as images, audio, gallery, paragraphs, etc., (ah! similar to Gutenberg’s ‘movable type’ printing press) and each block which can be individually customized. In contrast, the Classic editor treated the entire post as a single structure and all media had to be inserted & refined from the toolbar. The other attribute which stood out for me was the often used ‘link’ feature which has now become more focused and it’s easier to choose whether or not a link should open in a new window. I’m pretty certain in the coming days these collective features would provide a new visual language to the blog posts here. I’m certainly open to experimenting in the coming days.

That being said, although there are some glitches and I’m still learning the ropes, I am particularly eager to see how the other taskbar functions through third-party plugins would be integrated within Gutenberg (or not!!). With that, I’d like to say that WordPress has become a robust, most widely-used blogging platform which is why it should now aim to integrate popular blogging features into its core program, such as SEO or web analytics which are currently being delivered through third-party plugins. This would not only provide efficiency to the non-techie bloggers, it’d drastically minimize security concerns, make the platform faster, and enable WordPress to become a clear alternative to the competition.