Longevity, Personalization, and the UX of Health Optimization
As biometrics go mainstream and personalization becomes expected, the next frontier of health require UX teams to build tools that empower, without overwhelming.
What is Mondae Morning?
Each week, I explore how research, marketing, and design influence what we buy, use, and believe (particularly in the worlds of health + wellness, and wearable tech). With a background in UX research and public health, I share insights at the intersection of human behavior, branding, and trust.
This newsletter is part commentary, part case study, but more importantly, a space to think out loud about the products shaping modern life, and the systems behind them.
For curious readers, researchers, and anyone designing for real people.
Once reserved for Silicone Valley execs and elite biohackers, longevity trends are trickling they’re way into the mainstream, glamorizing the goal to live longer and live better. Earlier this year McKinsey published a report from their Future of Wellness survey identifying that younger generations (Millennials and Gen Z) spend disproportionately on wellness more than ever before. Thanks to the rise of wearables devices, health optimization has become more accessible and more measurable.
However, as devices promise better performance, deeper sleep, and longer lifespans, they also raise harder questions: How much tracking is too much? Who owns the data? And what happens when well-being becomes a data point? This piece explores how UX research can help product and marketing teams design for personalization of the every day consumer, while protecting HIPAA compliance and peace of mind.
The Market’s Complex Relationship with Personalization and Biometrics
On one hand, personalization is loved (so much so that it’s been commodified). Think of that spark of joy when you spot a gas station keychain with your exact name spelling, or the option to have text engraved on jewelry.
In the world of health tech, this desire for personalization has evolved into something deeper. The ability to quantify your body in real time is what helped wearables explode in popularity. From marathon training stats on Strava to MyFitnessPal meal logs, over the last 5 (or so) years, sharing personal progress became a social norm. The harder the effort, the more pride in the data. Even the traditional healthcare systems has began extracting real-time health data from users. However, at the same time there’s a sense of unease. As people welcome tools to track heart rate, fertility cycles, and sleep quality, a question lingers: Where is the line between helpful and invasive?
Similarly, how do we protect cognitive and emotional well-being when constant optimization becomes the expectation? It’s a tension of agency vs. automation. Of access vs. surveillance. From Fitbit to Oura Ring, today’s UX teams and product builders alike must grapple with ethical design questions:
How can we build tools that respect autonomy while supporting health goals?
When does feedback feel motivating, and when does it become controlling?
What does it feel like to share your biometrics in exchange for better insights?
If you ask me, I think the answers are found in the user’s lived experience. (More on this in a future section: Designing for Health Optimization While Maintaining Cognitive Safety)
Emerging Brands and Cultural Moments
Longevity is entering pop culture in real time. From TikTok’s obsession with “biohacking morning routines” to full-body scans offered like spa treatments, health optimization is becoming both aspirational and increasingly visible.
Take, for instance, a recent Keeping Up with the Kardashians episode featuring longevity enthusiast and Venture Capitalist, Bryan Johnson (Hulu’s Season 6, Episode 4, first aired February 2025). What was once underground is now streamed by millions. Dinner conversations about cellular aging and mitochondrial support are being reframed as lifestyle choices, rather than clinical interventions.
At the brand level, companies like Neko Health in London and Othership in Toronto are transforming the way we access diagnostics and spend our time in third spaces. Neko Health’s full-body scanning clinics promise early detection of illness through non-invasive imaging and real-time results. The catch? Their waitlist is 100,000+ deep and years long. Some lucky few have been confirmed to skip the line with the help the right contacts. Meanwhile, Othership was just financially backed by Shawn Mendes.
Even still, while the wealthy may be leading the longevity charge, trends are already trickling their way down to the general population. From cold plunges to optimized sleep, and even a step further DEXA scans. Once reserved for testing bone density, DEXA scans now being marketed as tools for everyday biohackers who want to track fat-to-muscle ratios with precision (aka calling all fitness enthusiasts!) They’re becoming so accessible, in some cities you can even book your first scan via ClassPass (spoiler: next week’s post is a reflection on my consumer experience with these scans).
While extraordinary progress, what’s important across these longevity-focused examples aren’t the tech but the emotional and social value layered on top. These services are designed to feel premium, futuristic, and deeply personal. A DEXA scan is more than a health check now; if framed and marketed correctly, it’s also a performance review for your body. Consider it identity work and trajectory forecasting.
From a UX standpoint, these cultural moments call attention to a few key shifts:
Wellness is theatrical: Users want to see and feel the optimization process in action, even if the outcomes are long-term.
Trust is built through transparency: Users are more likely to engage with brands that explain why data is being collected and how it benefits them.
The design bar is higher: When your product sits between medical-grade utility and lifestyle aspiration, users wish to experience clarity, elegance, and warmth, not the traditionally sterile clinical experience.
Longevity is being rebranded and with that comes a responsibility. More than ever it is crucial that product teams and brand builders design tools that respect the emotional complexity of those navigating their own health futures.
Existing products and services in health-tech are getting better, faster, and more comprehensive, however I’d argue they aren’t always shifting with our culture. As the narrative around measuring health metrics shift from a novelty, to an everyday necessity, a challenge of protecting mental clarity is beginning to emerge from a world of constant optimization.
Designing for Health Optimization While Maintaining Cognitive Safety
Health tracking is supposed to make us feel more in control and aligned with our better self, but there’s a fine line between motivation toward longevity and mental overload. For many users, myself included, that line is getting blurrier.
In the pursuit of health optimization, products often deliver constant nudges, progress metrics, and subtle warnings. While these features aim to guide behavior, they can also trigger the opposite: anxiety, guilt, or even paralysis.
As a current Apple Watch wearer, I also started using an Oura Ring to improve my sleep. Before long, I found myself wearing three devices to bed: Apple Watch, Oura Ring, and a TempDrop (monitors body temperature). At one point, I was sleeping through the night while fully instrumented and I was collecting data at a rate I couldn’t emotionally process.
The notifications came from all angles: “Don’t forget to stand." “You seem stressed.” “Last night’s sleep score: 87.”
There is nothing more stressful than being told you're stressed while you're stressed, especially when the product doesn’t offer any tangible guidance beyond the red alert.
After a couple weeks, I hit my limit and took a complete hiatus from all wearables. The data wasn’t helping me feel healthier, it was making me feel like I was constantly failing at recovery during an already stressful period in my life.
This is the moment UX teams must anticipate: detecting data fatigue. We owe it to users (and ourselves) to build interfaces and experiences that promote peace of mind by designing for psychological safety. So how do we identify product fatigue? I don’t have all the answer for how to achieve this, but some questions I’ve been reflecting on lately that could point to over-instrumentation of a health product:
Could behavioral data identify burnout?
Is the user engaging less frequently, or disabling notifications?
How do we measure feedback loops that create anxiety instead of insight?
Can we giving users control over the depth and frequency of feedback?
Where can a product offer actionable guidance when issues are flagged? // How do we better provide updates? // How do we balance updates that reassures vs. alarms?
Though longevity is about optimization and extending health-span, it still must be designed for the very human experience of low-points and bouncing back from breaks.
Consider this section an ongoing work-in-progress, but my TLDR: Can we still call it a a wellness tool if the wearable is causing stress? To build better products, we need to make sure we’re pairing accountability with empathy.
Building Better Products
Longevity for the Rest of Us: How We Can Innovate for the Health-Conscious Consumer
The current state of longevity tech has been marketed with a luxury price tag with $3,000 diagnostics, a lack of coverage by healthcare, and wellness routines that assume endless time and money. As the desire to age well becomes more mainstream, product teams have a unique opportunity to democratize longevity without diluting it.
As health optimization tools continue to move in the direction of normalized (from niche), the value of next wave innovation will lay within how they relate to users’ lived realities.
Like all health topics, longevity isn’t a one-size-fits-all journey. Some users are tracking glucose spikes to fine-tune athletic performance, while others are managing chronic fatigue, mental health, or hormonal changes. What’s needed now is a shift from "maximum performance" to "personalized relevance."
While the last section was a compilation of my own questions and musings, here I have a few buildable concepts teams can leverage to design with this broader longevity-conscious audience in mind:
Smart Defaults Based on Values
Instead of defaulting to metrics like strain, speed, or sleep efficiency, what if onboarding began with a values check-in? Start with a goal and tailor the experience from there with branching: Do you prioritize recovery, endurance, or mental clarity right now?” Based on that answer, the product could personalize nudges, feedback tone, and recommended routines. This approach respects the user’s autonomy and context, as opposed to blasting out their numbers in the middle of a stressful moment.A ‘Body Literacy’ Glossary Built Into the UI
Many health platforms assume a certain level of scientific or athletic literacy, but what happens when a user doesn’t know what HRV or glucose variability really means (or how to interpret it for their own life to become actionable?) Embedding plain-language, accessible microcopy or an expandable UX glossary into our product (or as a pamphlet if a CPG product) helps every day users turn data into understanding, no health class required. Transforming tracking from intimidating to empowering is also an easy first step to increasing accessibility across wealth classes and education levels (more on this in a future post).Longevity-Inspired Features That Feel Attainable.
Instead of premium add-ons, weave in accessible educational moments or features. Something like, “Did you know?” facts tied to behavioral science (e.g., walking 8,000 steps is linked to reduced mortality, even without hitting 10k). Optional check-ins about health goals across life stages, not just athletic performance. For example, progress indicators that celebrate maintenance, not just peak output because, sure, it’s a daily stand goal, but it’s also a decade-long investment. Try tweaking messages to sound more like “This habit supports long-term brain health.”
While longevity aesthetic leans into cold plunges and concierge clinics, more subtly we can embed it into daily life. With user experience at the forefront, a bridge will be built between elite science and everyday choices.
Some final thoughts:
In the age of optimization, what users crave most might not be more data, but more meaning behind their numbers. As products take a larger role in shaping how we relate to our bodies and decisions, the pressure to perform must give way to a deeper sense of support. If we want to build products that support users across all life stages, longevity design must go beyond accuracy by becoming empathetic. Longevity tools must be designed to help us feel seen, safe, and supported along the way of becoming optimized.
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