Elevating UX and shaping brand perception through clear website navigation

I revamped sitewide navigation for an academic medical center to help users find high-priority content and better communicate the organization's brand and services in a competitive healthcare market

At a glance

Problem

Some sitewide navigation labels confused users and failed to correct common misperceptions about the organization’s breadth of services.

Solution

Lead a thorough discovery and propose a new sitewide navigation to improve clarity and support brand voice, tone, and messaging.

Results

Usability testing showed participants successfully completed key tasks more often and more quickly.

Getting into the details

The problem

With a CMS replatforming on the horizon, an academic medical center asked for help laying the foundation for a successful redesign. The project included extensive discovery and analysis, content strategy, and design.

Part of the content strategy piece of this project was creating new information architecture, including a new sitewide navigation.

The existing navigation wasn't serving the organization well for multiple reasons.

It included labels that were confusing to healthcare consumers. The problem spot? "Find a Provider." This navigational link took users to the physician directory. But users users also clicked there to try to find information about insurance and facilities.
It didn't help with brand messaging. The academic medical center was growing its primary care services. But it was fighting a misperception in the community that people only visited the AMC when they needed specialty care. The label "medical services," in the main navigation was clear, but there was room for improvement. A new label could quickly convey that the organization offered both specialty and primary care services.

It didn't fully prioritize top tasks. Both users and the organization wanted insurance information to be easy to find. In the existing site structure, it lived on a subpage under the label "Patients & Visitors." User research showed that consumers didn't understand where to go on the site to find it.

What I did

I worked closely with a UX researcher and designer to pinpoint problems with the existing navigation, and then develop and test a new approach. My steps included:

Review of market research, personas, and brand positioning
Content inventory and audit
Stakeholder interviews
Online user survey (in partnership with UXR)
Usability testing of current site (in partnership with UXR)
Tree testing of current and proposed navigation (in partnership with UXR)

What changed

To better focus on the needs and preferences of healthcare consumers in the organization's primary service area, I proposed adjustments to the site's information architecture and sitewide navigation, including:

Change the labeling on the physician directory from "Find a Provider" to "Doctors" to make it more clear what information users can expect to find when the click on the link.
Change the labeling on the medical services section from "Medical Services" to "Primary and Specialty Care" to quickly communicate that the organization provided both types of care.
Prioritize financial information by placing it its own section and making it easily accessible from the main navigation under a link titled "Insurance & Billing."
Eliminate repetitive navigational links in the footer, and instead use this space for links and information for secondary audiences, such as referring physicians and job-seekers. This allowed us to streamline the main navigation.

Impact

We tested top tasks in both the existing and proposed navigation. My proposed navigation saw the following results:

Find a family physician: 11% lift in successful task completion
Learn about health plans accepted by this organization: 560% lift in successful task completion
Find options for walk-in care: 25% lift in successful task completion