DigitalHealth.London – Website Refresh

DigitalHealth.London had recently commissioned a UX consultant to explore and gain insight into their stakeholder’s user needs through focus groups and workshops. During the initial kick off call we involved this UX consultant to ensure that knowledge management was transferred, and there was an opportunity for them to bounce ideas with our UX designer and developer. This collaborative approach allowed our designer to implement the vision seamlessly going forward.

We also explored the narrative of the website, which underpins the business strategy and how we can use the website architecture as a guide to drive the messaging. Understanding this at the outset of the project helps to inform the design, ensuring that the website promotes the content in the most impactful and intuitive way possible.

We proposed building this website in the industry-standard WordPress CMS and ensured that the website complies with Level AA World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and follows Usability.gov guidelines so that it is fully compliant and accessible in line with industry standard practices, as well as privacy policies.

Our developers also made sure the site was optimised for all search engines using commonly used best practices for SEO.  Browser compatibility was also rigorously tested for all the main browsers.

Once we had a clear and comprehensive understanding of what DHL wanted, our UX designer worked up designs for both desktop and mobile versions of the website in line with the final brief and discussions.

In our initial design concept, we focussed on using white space to keep the website clean and fresh so as not to overwhelm the user upon entry to the site and allowing them to focus on the content and therefore messaging, supporting the research undertaken by DHL regarding their NHS audience and time pressures they are under.

We then used colour throughout the homepage to draw the user down the page, ensuring they access the content in a clear and logical order, creating flow to the page and helping the user absorb the information as they go.

We deliberately stuck to having minimal content on the homepage, providing a ‘snapshot’ and overview of who DHL are and what they do. From a UI perspective, this helps to quickly engage the user and give them enough information that they understand what the organisations does/can do for them, however, teases them into finding out more and therefore delving deeper into the site.

We reduced the number of static innovations that are displayed on the homepage, opting instead for a scroller function. This helps to keep the page clutter free, whilst also adding some interactivity which helps to increase engagement levels and enables the user to feel in control of their journey as they can make choices about what they access as they go through the site.

A key deliverable for the DHL site was that users can quickly and easily get in touch with the team for support. Within the design of the site, this is facilitated by the ‘sticky’ header and footer, ensuring that the ‘Contact’ button is always available in the navigation bar, and details of how to do so are always present in the footer of the site. We also added a fixed chat widget to the homepage which remains in place as the user scrolls up and down the page, meaning that they can jump on a chat at any moment, without having to go back to search for the function, helping with the objective of creating more leads for DigitalHealth.London.

Following approval from the client on the wireframes, we then created a working prototype to test with stakeholders.

Cynergy drafted the user testing instructions for DHL to invite stakeholders and set a two-week deadline for testers to submit their responses, giving them ample time to fit into their busy schedules. With a confirmed group of testers, DHL then shared the design concepts with stakeholders via a clickable prototype with aim of establishing if the website meets its deliverables.

First click testing – to help understand whether the design leads people effectively to the right content (this will especially help to test the different user journeys e.g., are NHS users accessing the innovation library as intended?)

Five second test – to measure what information users take away and what impression they were given of the organisation (e.g., does the site adequately portray the brand, services and expertise of DigitalHealth.London?)

Open analytics – Allow users to explore the website, helping to understand user flows and patterns and whether anything needs tweaking to enhance this.

Following the results from the user testing process, we then analysed and incorporated all of the feedback to refine and improve the final designs for approval. We then redistributed the updated designs to the user testers to ensure all changes implemented met their needs and expectations.

Our Cynergy developer was then able to begin building the website in line with the final agreed design via a staging site to ensure that the existing site is still functional and uncompromised so that DHL could carry on with ‘business as usual’ whilst the new site is being developed in the background.

Cynergy have worked collaboratively with the DigitalHealth.London team to help them refresh their platform, one which not only fully represents their brand, diversity, audience, offer and ambition, but that also that supports the team in being able to effectively manage their online presence, while meeting the needs of their stakeholders and without having to rely on external providers. This ensures self-sufficiency and growth for the next five years and cements their reputation in enabling health tech entrepreneurs and healthcare professionals to use digital innovations to create tangible improvements to staff and patients.