Summary
As with many institutional websites, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh’s site grew organically resulting in a rich repository of clinical content. However, it was no longer easy to navigate and did not convey the caring side of the hospital staff. Working with user interviews, I helped CHP re-architect the website from the user’s point of view, creating a final user experience based on three types of patient families and how they use the site.
Challenge
Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC was looking to re-architect the Liver and Intestine Transplant section of their website. This section, comprised of 300+ pages, is an important clinical focus area for the hospital. There were three important goals to balance in the re-design effort:
- Improve the user experience for parents and families of patients, conveying a family-centered care philosophy
- Reconfigure for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) particularly for liver transplant
- Create a stronger call to action prompting families in the research stage to contact Children’s
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- Prior to the redesign, the website was loaded with great content that meet all the goals, but it was built over time and navigated like a house with multiple room additions.
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- By using photos with the navigation, we accomplished two goals: conveyed the personal, caring side of Children’s Hospital while also creating easy navigation for the families of patients.
Solution
I began the effort with a series of contextual User Interviews, speaking with parents on-site at the hospital. I also interviewed professionals who assist parents of ill children and the website stakeholders (physicians and clinical staff). Learnings from these interviews were used to re-organize content and give priority to navigational elements. I also identified content elements from other sections of the website or other social media sites, such as YouTube, and outlined new potential content for the site.
In addition to the personal interviews, I also conducted Web-based competitive research on their Top 5 Web competitors as well as keyword research to determine most common used terms for navigational menu names.
Presenting the initial User Personas, Wireframes, and Site Architecture diagram to the stakeholders (the program physicians and clinical staff) the site architecture was settled and I delivered a comprehensive 350+ line Content Conversion Document that guided a three-person team comprised of a graphic designer, copywriter, and web developer in the multi-phase process of converting the website to the new architecture.
Restricted by limitations in the Content Management System (CMS) including a feature that automatically alphabetized navigational menu items and does not allow for hard-coding the order of items, the final site architecture was not optimal but the Web team, more familiar with the CMS, did come up with some effective workarounds allowing us to achieve our goals.
Results
The new final design is visually engaging and quickly conveys the caring, personal side of Children’s Hospital while the page layout easily identifies sections of the Website, and the title and hyperlinks, loaded with keywords, improves the SEO. Additionally, one physician noted that the Personas were a unique way of looking at their audiences and would be included in their future clinical approach.
Phase 1— the new navigational model, SEO optimization, and new visual design—was completed in December. Phase 2 will include new, additional content such as more clinical material, additional patient stories, revised physician/staff pages, and more video elements. Phase 2 is expected to launch early this year.
