Objective
Northwestern Medicine's Comprehensive Stroke Center is one of the most advanced in the country. However, its web presence lagged behind due to outdated and disorganized content. I was commissioned to redesign the Stroke pages to capture the expertise and level of care provided by the Stroke Center and its physicians.
Players
UX Designer (Me)
Content Writers
Front-End Web Developers
Stroke Physicians
My Responsibilities
Research
Information Architecture
Design
Constraints
Virtually no direct feedback from users due to time and resource limitations
Restricted design possibilities due to the use of templates
Rigid rules around displaying third-party badges and awards
Physician stakeholders’ busy schedules
Old Design
The layout of the Stroke pages is governed by standard NM.org templates, but these templates do not limit the content or number of components on each page. This was most obvious on the main Stroke page, which included an overwhelming amount of links - many of which were duplicates. Reorganization and content clean up would be the major goals of this redesign.
Stroke home page
There are seven Areas of Care cards that sometimes link to the same pages
Understanding Our Users
I wanted to understand where users struggled the most with the Stroke pages, but gathering direct feedback proved to be a challenge. Launching a survey on the Stroke pages resulted in few responses, and the project timeline did not leave enough time to organize user interviews.
Instead, I relied on website analytics, which showed that users most frequently visited pages with educational information around stroke prevention and identification. This trend was mirrored by their Google and site search queries.
Finally, an analysis of competitors’ stroke pages revealed a few more trends:
Organizing content into three buckets: prevention, treatment, and recovery
Highlighting awards and achievements on the main page
Direct access to outcomes data
Organizing the Content
With the identified trends in mind, I conducted a content audit to determine which content should stay, which should leave, and what was missing. Fortunately, much of the existing content fell into the same three buckets as competitors’ content. However, much of the high quality content was buried under outdated or duplicate content.
I plugged the results of the content audit into a mind map to find connections, and then refined this into a site map:
New Design
Using the site map, I mocked up wireframes for each page with a focus on highlighting impactful content and removing everything else. These wireframes received positive feedback from all stakeholders.
The final designs refined the appearance of the new Awards and Certifications component and pulled in finalized content:
The updated home page includes an emphasis on awards, a simplified Areas of Care section, and minimal right rail links.
A new media player on each Stroke page highlights relevant videos and podcasts.
Final Thoughts
Stakeholders, including the physicians, were very happy with the final designs. The site now showcases the accomplishments of the Stroke Center team clearly while also highlighting quality content without overwhelming users. The UX team plans to continue to work with stakeholders to iterate on the designs where necessary and ensure that old content is removed regularly.
