Improving Healthcare Web Design
Healthcare organizations face increasing challenges as the Internet becomes a vital and growing requirement for the industry. Pharmaceutical companies, providers, not-for-profit associations, and healthcare businesses face new challenges posed by digital media and the Internet. Competition, the changing marketplace, and consumer behavior are all part of this mix.
There are several best practices worth highlighting. The following six tips will help you in the healthcare website design process.
6 Tips for Improving Healthcare Web Design
1 – A website can be an educational tool.
Consumers and patients are always looking to validate and better understand their options. The educational potential of a healthcare organization’s website cannot be underestimated.
In addition, for search visibility, the content remains essential in marketing an organization and brand. For these reasons, educational tools and content should consider the web design process for a healthcare organization or brand.
2 – Social media should not be underestimated.
Social media allows an organization to communicate directly with potential users and existing users while allowing the organization to “hear” what the community is saying.
While social media evokes fear for many medical and healthcare organizations, the fact is that the web is inherently social, and conversations will exist with or without you. Social media can be harnessed and used to your organization’s advantage to improve services, outreach, marketing, and visibility within the marketplace.
3 – Digital appropriate marketing has power.
A contemporary organization can choose to go digital-first in its marketing approach to leverage better analytics/data and advance the customer experience.
Each digital marketing channel can help tell a brand’s story and improve a brand’s responsiveness to its respective community. Digital marketing is highly measurable and intrinsic to the emerging market.
This statement does not mean that traditional marketing is no longer influential. In reality, the appropriate marketing mix for an organization can be very individual. Some organizations may benefit from a higher ratio of digital to traditional. Still, nevertheless, an organization should not neglect its branded website, which acts as a 24/7 primary, branded touch point-central to any brand’s identity.
4 – Clarity, hierarchy, and simplicity build trust.
Poor design breeds confusion, exhaustion, and distrust. Consumers are often overwhelmed by the volume of information online and available through the Internet.
For this reason, it is vital for an organization to improve the user experience of its website – enabling consumers to find information, take action, engage, and access tools – with ease. The temptation for many brands is to allow the web design process to be politicized by boards, directors, and consultants so that everyone has their opinions represented on the brand’s website.
Too often, project members provide less feedback in the early planning stages and too much feedback during the design and visual scene. This can be a breakdown in the process, and ultimately this is the point where a “design by community” methodology can make a site ugly, complicated, and amateurish.
Simplicity, hierarchy, and clarity is a vital principle of good website design. Don’t let a design process become a political process. And… don’t be afraid of white space in your website design.
5 – Quality content is vital.
Search engines are always looking for high-quality content. This simple concept can help improve an organization’s marketing effort. Content is vital to marketing… Don’t ignore this fact just because it requires many resources.
Work hard to make your content resonate with your users and extended community. Use engagement metrics to judge whether your content is useful, helpful, and practical within the marketplace.
6 – Decide the purpose of your website.
A website with excellent healthcare web design should have a purpose. There needs to be a hierarchy of intent for your brand touchpoints. Essentially, this purpose will come from how and why you need users and consumers to engage your brand online.
The answer cannot be direct sales or direct registration transactions – direct transactions are more commonly attributed to e-commerce websites.
Defining a purpose and categorizing the needs of your website will help your team and design agency build better performance and a precise touchpoint.
Try to map and justify the intentions of each section of the site for better results on your brand’s user experience. This simple point will help your organization achieve its goals.
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