Create a Powerful User Journey For Your Healthcare Website
A website 'User Journey' is defined as a person's experience during a visit to your website. It consists of a series of actions, designed to achieve a goal both for your healthcare business and the visitor to your healthcare website.
At Arttia Creative we know that websites with a well-defined user journey deliver results for Life Sciences. Plus, we have the data to prove it.
Careful planning - a better healthcare website
Careful planning before you dive into your healthcare website design or a site map will give you a framework on which to create a powerful experience. One that delivers results for both your healthcare business and your clients and customers.
Mapping out the preferred 'user journey' and 'user-flow' before your design or development stages will help to make sure you cover everyone's needs and helps to identify areas that may have been missed without this.
How to get started with a healthcare website user journey and user flow
Even if you have a completed website you can still refine the content and improve your visitor's experience with a mapped website user journey.
In this article, I'm going to give you a high-level view of how you can create powerful user journeys across your healthcare website. One created based on an understanding of your online objectives and your online user's needs.
What path would you like your healthcare customers to take? What is their ideal destination?
A common mistake
We see this time and time again. A healthcare business lists out the pages they think they need for their website, very often based on what they see on their competitor's website or on an assumption of what is common on any website. This creates pages that end up having 'thin' content or have no real value to the site or the user's experience. And a website structure that is random and confusing.
Starting with a clear rationale for each page, section, action and content will give you confidence that your new healthcare website will provide results and the ROI you need.
Define who will be using your website
When planning your healthcare website use your audience profiles to map out who will be using your website. Usually, there will be a range of different users. These could be; researchers, clinical professionals, academics or patients. These visitors will be looking for different information and therefore will take a different journey on your website. They will have different needs and you will probably want each visitor type to take a different action.
- Sketch out the content you have that they need
- How will they find and interact with the content specific to them
- What is the shortest route they can take on your website to get to the most relevant content for them
- When they find the content, what action would you like them to take
- When they take this action - consider the 'what next'
- Can you direct them to any supporting content
Define exactly what you would like them to do
Make it easy for your healthcare customers to do what you want them to do. What is the reason you want them on your website? It could be to read a review, get a sample, request support or make a purchase.
When you have defined exactly the action you would like them to take you can integrate this action into your content and the user-flow around it.
Defining what you want them to do will help you understand how all of your pieces fit together on your healthcare website.
Consistent patterns and experiences across your website content will help users understand the action to take. Making conscious design decisions based on your site map and user-flow will allow users to move through your website efficiently and effectively.
Create a narrative within your design
Each page design will benefit from a narrative or story as the visitors progress through your content. Think of it as a journey they take down your page. New visitors may want to consume all of the content on the page as they gain an understanding of what you do. Returning visitors may want to take immediate action. The page design and narrative should accommodate both of these types of visitors.
Space, content hierarchy and clearly design sections will guide your visitor on a pleasing journey and take the action you need. Healthcare can be an emotional subject, your visitors will want to feel that you understand their needs and concerns. Providing them with reassurance, trust factors, empathy and expert knowledge within your content helps make the connection you need.
Fine tune over time
How we think users will interact with our content doesn't always fit with reality. Websites are living entities that require constant care and the ability to grow over time. Not to grow in a random and ad-hoc manner, but to grow in a way that benefits everyone. With content that can be easily found in the fewest amount of clicks or actions.
Creating a powerful User Journey is never a one-off activity. Refining the journey based on how users are interacting will help you improve goals and conversions. Using anonymous tracking tools you should be able to identify where people click or how far they journey on your page or across your content. Where they click and visit and where they enter and leave your site can guide improvements.
Making small changes within the content over time can improve your User Journey. Adding pages and sections or additional interactions can enhance the overall flow.
The Takeaway.
Being tasked with creating a new Healthcare Website is challenging.
We help you plan your website project.
We help you create a plan that pleases your CEO.
We help you create an outstanding Healthcare Website.
Mapping out your healthcare site structure, expected user journey and user flow at the start will give you a solid foundation on which to add new content in a structured way, rather than adding random new sections, will help create a logical structure. A logical structure is appealing to content creators, visitors and Google.
As website consultants to Healthcare and Life Science, we are here to help you map out your healthcare website experience from the start.
Ask about our website discovery workshops
We provide website consultancy and discovery workshops to help you to plan the perfect healthcare website and User Journey and User. Helping you create a meaningful website project brief so that your new healthcare website delivers results. SEO optimised, designed and developed on time and to budget.