The Intimacy Contract: How Health Tech Earns Its Place

Wearables and health devices aren’t accessories. Essentially, they’re branded body parts.

They clip to our skin, whisper data in the dark, and sit quietly through our best and worst moments … hunger, panic, resolve, relapse. They watch us fail and try again. They have a front-row seat to who we really are when no one’s looking.

That’s so much more than a product experience. That’s a relationship.

Welcome to the intimacy contract: the unspoken agreement where users grant biometric access in exchange for support, not surveillance or judgement.

Here’s the uncomfortable part: most health tech brands don’t even realise they’re in this contract. Fewer still know how to hold up their end.

The value exchange

Users give up a lot. Their data. Their patterns. Their private signals. In return, they expect clarity, control, and compassion. Not another dashboard shouting 'Do Better.' Or nudges that feel more like nags.

They want to feel less burdened, not more.

They want a partner to lighten the load.

Brands, on the other hand, are chasing adoption.

They want daily use, repeat engagement, lifetime value. But here’s the disconnect: they’re often designing for an idealised version of behaviour.

Users, however, are flawed. They’re busy, distracted, and will use (or not use) the device according to their own needs and circumstances.

That gap is where trust erodes, and where most health tech falls short.

Where it goes sideways

Many brands focus on form factor, not friction. They build smart UX, but forget emotional UX. They can read a heartbeat but not the room.

Because in health tech, your product is never just the product.

Your product is the emotional labour it relieves, or adds.

That’s where behavioural fluency comes in: the strategic ability to design for how people actually manage their health – emotionally, inconsistently, imperfectly.

It’s about being human. And designing for humans.

Behavioural Fluency in Action

We’ve seen this in action a few different ways for brands in the health tech space. Let’s take Omnipod 5 - the first and only tubeless, automated, wearable insulin delivery device. As their agency, we aren’t teaching people with Type 1 diabetes how to manage. They already know how. What they want is less mental math. Fewer interruptions.

Our 'Life Gets Bigger' campaign didn’t sell control. It celebrates freedom. Freedom to sleep through the night. To jump in the pool. To say yes to more.

That’s behavioural fluency: designing to reduce the invisible load. Then there’s KEEPR - a discreet biometric device for alcohol awareness, developed for people navigating sobriety, curiosity, or accountability on their own terms. We helped bring it to market with a stigma-free digital experience and a brand that prioritized privacy, not pressure. No streaks. No shame. No dopamine-chasing dashboards. Just subtle, private cues to help users build self-awareness…on their own terms.

It doesn’t force behaviour into the binary.

It lives in the grey. And (just like in our personal relationships) that’s exactly where trust is really earned.

These above-mentioned devices couldn’t be more different, yet the same principle applies:

When brands understand the emotional labour behind health decisions and design to reduce it, they build real loyalty.

The Real Work

Health tech doesn’t need a better UI. It needs better bedside manner.

The brands that win in this space won’t just be smart. They’ll have emotional intelligence designing for the realities of real life, not just ideal states.

Because access is easy. But staying invited into someone’s body, their habits, their health. That’s the hard part.

That’s when a brand becomes more than a product.