A design-first approach to digital health
Clearstep shipped its symptom checking and care routing platform in 2018 with a clear goal: make the experience of figuring out where to go for care feel as smooth as booking a ride or checking a bank balance. The platform helps patients decide whether they need care, what kind of provider to see, and even offers cost estimates and scheduling — all from one flow.
That ambition brings real design pressure. The team has to present a lot of information — symptom assessments, provider matches, insurance eligibility, cost transparency — in a way that patients can act on without adding to the anxiety that brought them there. With a small team and a large user base, Peter Garber (co-founder and Head of Design) and Annie Kramer (VP of Product Engineering) lean on a design process built for speed and precision.
Iterating on flows, text, and color
Getting the user journey right took multiple rounds of iteration. The team focused on guiding patients through symptom checking and care comparison without friction. Some features made that work easier: Smart Selection, for example, let the team reorder care options in results views with simple drag-and-drop instead of manual configuration.
Typography demanded close attention too. Small differences in header and body text presentation changed how users moved through the symptom checker and weighed their options. Auto-resizing button text made it easy to test different copy variants, freeing up time for higher-cognitive-load design tasks.
Because Clearstep licenses its platform to health systems, the team regularly produces briefs with customer branding. Each customer brings a different color palette, so the design process has to support quick, custom implementations. When preparing a client brief, Garber creates a new file in the team’s workspace and adds the brand colors to the document’s color styles. Adjustments to mockups or advertisements can be applied across multiple elements at once, and styles can be published to a Library for all editors to use.
Collaborating across remote workflows
The team’s design tool of choice supports real-time multiplayer editing, which changes how remote collaboration works. Kramer can inspect handoff while Garber edits, flag UX opportunities, or make direct edits herself. Color-coded, named cursors let teammates give feedback without screen-sharing over video calls. When Kramer walks through a feature, Garber can jump into observation mode by clicking her avatar to follow along.
The commenting system also keeps feedback structured. Garber can work through comments one by one, either resolving them after making a UI change or responding directly in the thread. And when text or colors are updated, publishing those changes keeps everyone in sync the next time they open the file.
From design to production
When designs are finalized, the engineering team moves into implementation using shared styles, the code panel, and offset labels between UI components. Exporting assets on the fly means the team doesn’t need to pause for clunky asset transfers — they can pull what they need from the design file as they build.
The result is a platform where patients can spend less time searching the internet for answers and more time getting clear guidance on the right care. For Clearstep, the principle is simple: accessing healthcare should be easy.
