🎯 The Challenge
MedBridge, a UK-based digital health startup, was building a mobile app that would let patients schedule GP appointments, access repeat prescriptions, and message their care team. Having watched a competitor spend £400,000 rebuilding an app from scratch after a disastrous launch, the MedBridge founders were determined to get patient requirements precisely right before writing a single line of code. Their problem: they had no existing patient base to survey, and traditional UX research agencies were quoting 10–16 weeks and five-figure sums for recruit-and-survey projects.
🔬 The Solution
The MedBridge product team used Softstack Research to design and deploy a 24-question survey targeting UK adults aged 35–70 who had used at least one NHS or private GP service in the past 12 months. The platform's AI screened responses for quality, identified statistically significant patterns, and generated a cited findings report in nine days. Key insights included: 68 % of respondents rated repeat-prescription management as the single most important feature; patients over 55 strongly preferred a 'large text' accessibility mode; and the #1 frustration with existing apps was notification overload. The AI also conducted sentiment analysis on 1,200 App Store reviews of five competing health apps, surfacing the exact language patients used when praising or criticising similar products.
These findings directly informed the app's information architecture, onboarding flow, and notification settings before the development sprint began.
"The research didn't slow us down—it actually sped us up. We walked into the design sprint knowing exactly what patients needed. No debates, no guesswork. The Softstack platform made proper patient research accessible to a twelve-person startup."
📈 The Results
MedBridge shipped their iOS app on schedule, with every prioritised feature validated by real patient data. The app launched with a 4.8-star App Store rating and 94 % of early reviewers specifically mentioning the prescription management flow and accessibility options—the two areas most heavily shaped by the Softstack research. The team completed development without a single major rebuild. The CTO credited the pre-build research phase with saving an estimated £180,000 in rework costs.
Key outcomes
- 4.8 ★ — App Store rating (launch day)
- 0 — Rebuild cycles avoided
- 340+ — Survey responses analysed