Who are health and wellness apps actually built for? Because from where I sit, they're designed for people who are already "well off" – people with disposable income, free time, and the health literacy to navigate medical terminology.
What about everyone else?
Most health and wellness products cater to an idealized user: someone who speaks English fluently, can afford premium features, and possesses the digital literacy to troubleshoot when things go wrong. This bias doesn’t happen by accident. It’s a legacy of VC-driven strategies that prioritize a narrow, privileged audience, the so-called “first best user,” reinforcing an ecosystem that is built to exclude the people that need it most.
Designing in this way serves complacency and the bottom line — not people.
Overcoming invisible barriers
Over 60% of US adults struggle with health literacy, according to recent studies. Additional research shows that 32.5% of popular social media cancer articles contain misinformation, and among those articles, 76.9% contain harmful information. The problem isn't a lack of information but knowing what to trust when comprehension is already stretched thin by fear and medical language.
Language itself creates another barrier – one that's often overlooked. An app available only in English excludes millions of people who need health support. Even machine translation isn't enough when medical terminology requires cultural context and nuance. True localization means more than converting text. It means adapting content to reflect different healthcare systems, insurance structures, and cultural attitudes toward illness. When you're managing a chronic condition or caring for an ill family member, wrestling with an interface that wasn't built for your language adds cognitive burden at precisely the wrong moment.
Accessibility extends beyond translation and screen readers. It's recognizing that someone managing a chronic condition while working two jobs doesn't have bandwidth for complicated interfaces. Similarly, it’s understanding that cognition becomes impaired under stress. Remembering login credentials becomes impossible during a health crisis. Does your app treat missed sessions as failure rather than recognizing that life intervenes?
Consider what intentional inclusivity looks like in practice. Through our work with Cancer Awareness Trust on Cancer Platform, we've seen how critical it is to deliver information at the right moment, in the right format. When 94% of people diagnosed with cancer search for answers online, they need more than information – they need trust. Our AI-powered platform meets people where they are in their cancer journey. It's an empathetic, non-judgmental reflection of where someone actually is in their health literacy and digital capability.
This approach matters across all health conditions. Artificial intelligence has fundamentally changed what's possible. You don't need to navigate complicated app mechanics. So long as you can send a text message, you can access support.
We've also worked on Synchron's brain-computer interface, recognized as one of TIME's Best Inventions of 2025. The interface we designed translates brain signals into screen navigation for patients who can't move or speak. When you design for someone with such specific needs, you're forced to strip away every unnecessary layer of complexity. That discipline creates better experiences for everyone – proving that inclusive design isn't a nice-to-have, but how we build products that actually work.
Redefining what works
So whilst barriers to entry exist, they can be solved for. The broader question is what health and wellness apps do once people are in – and why that still isn’t good enough.
Health and wellness apps love to talk about engagement – daily active users, streaks, time in app. But engagement isn’t the same as impact. If people aren’t achieving their health goals, those metrics are just noise.
Genuine stickiness isn't about habit loops or gamification. It’s about value, creating something people come back to because the product genuinely supports them through their entire health journey.
Someone managing cancer needs different support at diagnosis, during treatment, in recovery, and through survivorship. Yet most apps are designed around a single moment or behavior, ignoring the continuum of care people need across time. Support should fit people’s real lives, not an idealized version of them.
We have the technology. We have the frameworks. We can build more inclusive, adaptive products — so why aren’t we?