Imagine navigating a website seamlessly to schedule an appointment with your family doctor, accessing your medical records securely, or finding reliable health information at your fingertips. This was the vision guiding our team as we embarked on the redesign of North Peel Family Health's website.
Why NPFH?
This redesign project was initiated at the request of one of the stakeholders, doctor Manning who was part of the North Peel Family Health Clinic. He provided us with useful insights to consider while doing user tests. Our journey began with a deep dive into understanding the challenges faced by patients when interacting with the existing website. Through surveys, user tests, and heuristic evaluations, we uncovered crucial insights:

• Users expressed frustration over the lack of appointment booking functionality,

• Users had "limited to no" access to their medical information,

• An overwhelming amount of information on the site

• There is no call to action on the website or app to book an appointment

Armed with these insights, we set out to redefine the user experience, but first, we needed to know how our competitors were doing, identifying major flaws in the existing website's navigation and user interface.

.competitor analysis

In our redesign process, we comprehensively analyzed the diverse user base of the family health website, encompassing patients, caregivers, doctors, administrative staff, and more, each with unique needs and perspectives. Central to our approach was the creation of a persona named Fred, representing a patient grappling with obesity and underlying health conditions, guiding our design decisions to prioritize his specific requirements from the outset. By anchoring our efforts on Fred's user journey, we ensured a tailored and empathetic redesign that addressed the core concerns of our target audience.

Conducted in-depth interviews with 35 individuals matching Fred's profile, yielding valuable survey insights that directly influenced the refinement of our MVP into a Minimal Viable Product. Key features identified to be essential for our website redesign include:

• Implementation of a secure patient portal encompassing prescriptions, doctors' notes, treatment plans, and test results to enhance user privacy and convenience.

• Integration of a prominent call-to-action button facilitating users in scheduling doctor appointments swiftly and efficiently.

• Provision of updated schedules for doctors, ensuring users have real-time access to appointment availability.

• Recommendation of lifestyle-based community platforms or health-related articles by doctors to promote holistic well-being and engagement within the user community.

• A streamlined presentation of information, emphasizing brevity and readability to enhance user comprehension and navigation efficiency.
  

Ideation and Strategic Planning:
With a clear understanding of our user needs, our team engaged in brainstorming sessions to ideate a comprehensive work plan. We leveraged tools like Gantt charts and Trello to stay organized and meet our deadlines effectively. Collaboratively, we developed a strategic design approach, emphasizing the importance of visual balance, relevant information presentation, and intuitive navigation. We divided our focus of features based on Fred's persona:

• on developing a user-friendly password-protected profile dashboard

• booking CTA button and doctor schedules

• health and wellness-related resources

  
  

Prototyping and Validation: Translating our ideas into tangible solutions, we developed the information architecture for well-thought-out navigation following our collected data in the feature prioritization matrix followed by the next design process steps of sketching and wireframing before we crafted prototypes that reflected the new informational architecture.

Through iterative testing, we validated our design decisions, ensuring they resonated with user expectations. Usability tests provided invaluable feedback, guiding us in refining the user flow and interface elements.

User-Centric Design Solutions: Addressing the key challenges identified during research, we implemented innovative solutions. Introducing a streamlined appointment booking system, we empowered patients to schedule appointments online conveniently. A secure patient portal was integrated, granting users access to their medical records and treatment plans. Additionally, we revamped the website's content structure, prioritizing relevant information and enhancing visual hierarchy for effortless navigation.