We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer Chengcheng Hou about their original and creative Medical App design work. Chengcheng Hou is an award-winning service designer, that makes our world a better place with their original medical app works.
Chengcheng Hou ("CH") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work Tia Life Chart Medical App. Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
CH : The core principle was to bring clarity and compassion to women’s health records. Inspired by integrative care models, the Tia Life Chart visualizes a patient’s mental, physical, and reproductive health on one longitudinal timeline—offering a more complete picture of the person, not just the condition.
CH : My focus was to streamline clinical workflows while empowering patients. I wanted providers to spend less time navigating systems and more time caring, and for patients to see their health as an interconnected story rather than a series of disconnected visits.
CH : We’re expanding it into a full care timeline, incorporating labs, provider notes, and predictive health insights. I also plan to open-source parts of the design framework for other care startups, so more people can benefit from holistic, human-centered health tools.
CH : The initial concept took about three months from research to launchable prototype. But it’s been refined over a full year of iteration, with continuous feedback from providers, coordinators, and patients.
CH : This was a commissioned and mission-aligned project. As Tia’s senior product designer, I saw firsthand the fragmentation in our care data and felt inspired to reimagine how we could visualize health more holistically.
CH : The design is actively in use within Tia clinics across the U.S., serving over 42,000 patients. It’s proprietary to Tia, though elements of the concept could inspire or be adapted by other healthcare platforms in the future.
CH : I wanted to design for impact, not just interface. Healthcare is one of the most complex and emotionally charged experiences a person can have—designing something that supports both clinical accuracy and emotional understanding was deeply meaningful to me.
CH : Yes—IDEO’s work in human-centered health inspired the empathy-first approach. Apple's Health app influenced some of the data visualization simplicity. Internally, our providers' feedback shaped nearly every design decision—we co-designed this with the people who use it every day.
CH : Our primary users are healthcare providers—physicians, nurse practitioners, care coordinators—working in integrative women’s health. The design also indirectly serves patients, by improving how their care is documented, coordinated, and delivered.
CH : Unlike traditional EMRs, which silo mental, physical, and gynecological data, TLC combines them in one unified, chronological interface. It’s built specifically for integrative care, prioritizing usability, visual hierarchy, and time-based context—something almost no other EMR does well.
CH : We called it Tia Life Chart to emphasize its holistic view of a patient’s life—not just their lab values or symptoms. “Life” conveys breadth and context; “Chart” grounds it in clinical utility. It’s a name that bridges empathy and precision.
CH : I used Figma for the core UI and interaction design, FigJam for early mapping and workshops, and Whimsical for system modeling. For testing, we used Lookback and internal tools built into Tia’s staging EMR.
CH : Its integration of multiple care domains—mental, physical, reproductive—into a single visual timeline, optimized for both fast triage and deep care planning. It’s not just a chart; it’s a clinical narrative.
CH : Yes—this was deeply collaborative. I worked with physicians, engineers, care coordinators, clinical ops leads, and a data analyst. Their expertise helped shape both the logic and the layout of the interface, ensuring it worked across diverse use cases.
CH : Technology powers the smart sorting of data, surfacing what's most urgent or relevant at a glance. It also enables real-time updates and integrates lab values, diagnoses, and notes into a coherent stream—all while being HIPAA-compliant and performant.
CH : Yes—we conducted task flow analysis, interviewed 15+ providers, and reviewed EMR usage logs to identify pain points. Post-launch, we tracked metrics like task turnaround time, documentation speed, and care plan completion—each of which improved significantly due to this design.
CH : Balancing flexibility with consistency was a major challenge—different providers needed different workflows, but we had to create a unified system. We also had to work within the limits of our legacy backend while designing for future scalability.
CH : After seeing the measurable impact of Tia Life Chart—on documentation speed, booking rates, and patient outcomes—I felt the story needed to be shared more broadly. Submitting to international competitions was a way to advocate for better healthcare UX and highlight what’s possible when design is integrated into care delivery.
CH : I learned how to balance intuition with systems-level thinking. Designing for healthcare requires empathy and structure. I became more confident in prioritizing what matters most in a complex environment and in co-creating solutions alongside providers who depend on these tools every day.
CH : Only that design in healthcare is often invisible, but it deeply affects how people experience care. I’m proud that this project didn't just win awards—it made things easier for people doing incredibly hard work. That, to me, is the highest honor design can earn.
