The Future of User Research in Healthtech: What ZoCo’s Team Sees Coming in 2025

One unusually warm (for Ohio) December day, I put a few of our researchers on the spot to predict the future of user insights for healthtech companies in 2025. 

Their responses?‍

Sara: “I need to look at the data.”

Ethan: “What kind of question is that?”

Hannah: “Like, right now?”

Anna: **laughs**

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I really should have seen that coming. 

No researcher worth their salt is going to answer a huge, vague question like that—dropped like a bomb right before a Zoom meeting—without first asking why I wanted to know, who I was planning to tell, and whether they could do some, you know, actual research before answering.

Fortunately, we didn’t need to look far for insights. Health has been the predominant industry ZoCo has served across every year of business since 2013; so important to us that we announced our focus in this space at the end of last year. 

In 2024 alone, we had dozens of conversations with healthtech leaders, hosted five Product Invitational events across three cities, and conducted in-depth interviews with hundreds of providers, caretakers, and patients through research for clients like CoverMyMeds, Medforall, and University Hospital Ventures. We use NotebookLM, Dovetail, and Miro to distill learnings throughout the year, folding in healthtech trends we’re following.

After giving the team an afternoon to nerd out combing our research repository, we identified our themes and each researcher had their prediction ready:

Sara: Healthtech companies will need to embrace the shift from patient-centered to individual-centered experiences.

‍“The Evolution of Health Experience” report from HLTH and Otsuka Precision Health emphasizes the shift from viewing individuals as "patients" to "persons." We’ve known for a long time that healthcare decisions are shaped by many factors. Connecting the dots between a person’s experience with your product, many medical providers, wellness or medical apps, health related social needs (HRSN) and SDoH, or anything else that a person considers to be part of their healthcare “ecosystem”  is more crucial than ever. How do you fit into their lives and workflows? What problems are you solving? What workarounds are people still using? With so much fragmentation and competition across healthcare, people will raise their expectations of experiences and products. Fortunately, user research enables healthtech companies to meet rising expectations and deliver value across an individual’s healthcare experience, and healthtech companies that invest in it will lead the way.

Ethan: We’ll do more research with buyers than users.

Don’t get me wrong, you’re always going to want to conduct research with users to make sure your digital experience solves problems and retains your users long-term. But we’re seeing a growing interest from product teams in researching buyers and decision makers, whether they’re office administrators, IT committees, or CFOs. Why? In Provider SaaS or B2B2C models, it’s usually not the providers or patients you need to sell to. Researching buyers helps validate your sales and GTM strategy, uncovers the value your product needs to provide to displace incumbents, and reveals the pain points, motivations, and decision-making process of these essential gatekeepers.

Hannah: We’ll do more research with real-world products like wearables and hardware vs. software.

‍As AI continues to improve bulk data analysis and perform remote patient monitoring, we expect to see a rise in data collection from smart devices—after all, the output analysis is only as good as the data input. This means an increase in real-world product research—be that user-generated health data from wearables, voice, or other smart technologies throughout the healthcare setting. As an industrial designer at heart, nothing thrills me more than the idea of field research for such important products. UX research can do so much more than just inform digital design—it can help bridge the gap between patient awareness and action.

Anna: User researchers will need to master product analytics to effectively combine qualitative insights with quantitative data.

‍Long gone are the days of user researchers primarily relying on interview insights to make informed recommendations. As products generate vast amounts of user behavior data and businesses demand measurable outcomes, mastering analytics tools like Google Analytics, Amplitude, and Pendo, is more critical than ever. By pairing the depth of qualitative insights with the scale and credibility of quantitative findings, researchers can maximize their relevance and ensure their recommendations drive meaningful product and business impact.

User research is like preventative care for your product.

Some of these predictions might evolve in unexpected ways, but one thing is certain: even a small amount of research can go a long way. Instead of throwing ideas out there to see what sticks, start integrating insights earlier in your strategic planning—before you roadmap your next feature or pitch to that new target segment. User research is like preventative care for your product. The earlier you check in, the fewer issues you’ll face later.

If you’re setting goals, planning strategy, or placing product bets in 2025, don’t leave talking to people out of the equation. Build your products with their voices at the center, and you’ll be on the path to acquiring buyers, retaining users, and growing your business. And if you need help uncovering those insights, ZoCo is here to guide the way.

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