The current smartphone age began back in 2007 when Apple launched the iPhone and changed the way in which consumers perceived the Medical Website Design possibilities that should be available to them via their mobile handsets. Of course it could be claimed that the creation of the App Store digital download service in mid-2008 was what really turned people on to the idea of using their smartphone for more than just making calls and sending texts.
By opening up the platform to third Medical Web Design party developers and presenting software firms with a huge, diverse, global audience it was possible for innovative, practical and fun content to be generated simultaneously. This means that while school kids use smartphones for gaming and socialising, medical professionals are leveraging the technology in the workplace each and every day to make many common tasks easier to achieve than ever before.
There have been varying surveys published concerning the usage of smartphones by medical professionals. In 2010 the Spyglass Consulting Group published a study which implied 94 per cent of physicians have taken advantage of smartphones. However, this included using them for simple communication as well as viewing medical information or managing their business and personal lives, which may be a little broad of a definition from which it is possible to draw any definitive conclusions.
A separate report from Jackson & Corker published in 2011 shows that 80 per cent of doctors take advantage of medical smartphone apps on a day to day basis in their practices. This gives a far firmer indication that medical professionals are getting used to harnessing smartphones on a regular basis, allowing them to better interact with patients and deal with the business of helping to heal people.
Unsurprisingly it is the younger generation of physicians who are taking up smartphones in the greatest numbers, with recent graduates more likely to use digital technology during their working hours than those who are coming to the end of their careers. A breakdown of the figures in this report shows that physicians working in emergency rooms are the most frequent smartphone users while clinical pathologists reside at the other end of the scale, rarely using their mobiles.
It is clear that as the next wave of medical professionals enters the job market there will be a far larger proportion of doctors taking advantage of smartphone functionality when practicing health care. This means that any company which is in the business of supplying medical information or services will need to prepare for this sea change.
Medical website development for desktop platforms is quite different from the kind of process a medical website designer will need to go through when creating a smartphone-friendly service. A medical website design needs to take into account the fact that while a desktop user will have a large display combined with a keyboard and a mouse for interaction with the content, a mobile user will not have any of these things.
Modern smartphones can have an array of different interfaces, but in general you will be best placed to create your medical website design so that it is accessible to all users. You should focus your medical website designer on building something that those with touch screen handsets can access without impediment. This is why your medical website designer will need to eschew links embedded in text which can be fiddly to access precisely with fingers in favour of larger buttons and menu items that lend themselves to touchscreen interactivity.