Welcome to Our New Website!
We hope that you find the way this website presents information to be helpful and easy. It was created with our website users in mind, and will continue to be adjusted over the coming weeks.
It had been several years since our website was last designed, and so much had changed regarding the technology used to create it, as well as how the cardiology group wanted to be portrayed. Most importantly, we became more aware of how the website could do a better job of helping people than it had.
The Main Objectives of the Re-design
There were several goals related to providing value to patients and their caregivers, our staff, and the general public. Overall, the main objective is to quickly and easily provide the information being sought by existing and new patients, resulting in a reduction in unnecessary phone activity, and thus a reduction in frustration of patients and staff.
Easy Access to General Information
Accessing information on the website should not be a frustrating experience, especially when patients may be feeling physically unwell, and experiencing stress and uncertainty due to their health.
The staff should also be relieved of the difficulty in finding information on the website, and the feeling of being unable to help patients with it. As this is a high volume cardiology group with busy phones, we hope that basic information can now be found easily without having to call and wait on hold. There should be a reduction in calls from patients seeking general information, as it should now be more easily found on the website.
Users and Objectives
In preparation for this comprehensive project, the existing website’s function, organization, and content were analyzed and compared with the anticipated needs of website visitors and the organization.
After gathering input from staff, management and other website users, we began drafting priorities for an organization of the website which would solve pain-points and meet the objective of presening the most sought information in an intuitive manner.
| Users | Objectives |
|---|---|
Existing patients | Find the patient portal link, phone number and address |
| Potential new patients | Learn about the practice and doctors, treatments, locations, contact information, networks and insurance accepted |
Referring providers | Find cardiologists by location and contact information |
| Potential staff and partner physicians | Learn about openings, the history, business structure, work environment |
| Staff | Lighten the call volume due to information being provided on the website |
| Vendors | Learn about the practice and whether it could benefit from the vendor’s products or services |
Intuitive Website Navigation
The key to making information more easily findable on a website lies in organization. It should be arranged in an order that would make sense to the people visiting it, not just to those creating it. How people interact with a system of organization depends on psychology. The designers must take into consideration the psychology of the people who will be visiting the website. There is a whole science behind designing for the way people would naturally move about on websites and apps, called User Interface Design and User Experience.
The psychology in this area of design relies on modern standards to which people have become accustomed when moving through website navigation menus and pages. There should be logical grouping of similar categories, and there should be hierarchies based on the priorities of the user. Symbols are meaningful in communicating to users based on what they are used to experiencing. For example, a downward arrow on a navigation menu tells people that there are sub-pages which will be listed under the menu item; underlined text usually indicates a link; most frequently needed buttons are convenient if placed in the top and right, closer to where most would enter the screen with a pointing device.
User Feedback
It can be challenging for website designers to know what their target user will be looking for, and how they understand the way the site has been organized. For this reason, designers must research and follow standard practices, but they must also listen to feedback from actual users. Through the user’s journey, they may find ease or confusion which were not expected by the designer. By gathering feedback, the designer may make adjustments if the changes will improve the experience for the majority of users.
We appreciate you taking an interest in our new website re-design, and hope that we have solved many of the pain-points you may have experienced previously.
This post was written in collaboration with the website designer, Studio City Web. To provide helpful feedback about this website, please enter the password stk on this form on the designer’s website.