10th November 2022 was World Usability Day – a day established to promote the values of universal usability and every user's obligation to ask for better experiences from digital services. This year’s theme, ‘Our Health’, considered the “systems that provide healthcare in all its many forms and digital health related solutions”.
This has given us an opportunity to reflect on all the great organisations in the health sector we have worked for who are putting users at the forefront of what they do…
- NHS Blood and Transplant who wanted to conduct research with users to define the blood donation journey and improve engagement with underrepresented groups
- Care Inspectorate Scotland who built accessibility into a new portal to improve the experience for everyone needing to register a new care business
- Carer Support Wiltshire who wanted to understand how their website could better support unpaid carers
- Alzheimer’s Society who wanted to develop a new information architecture to improve the findability of support content and information on their website
These organisations are improving access to health information, streamlining government health services and improving the support available to those either experiencing health problems or the people supporting them. What is true for all these clients is that by involving users in the development or improvement of health services, the end result will be effective and provide the help people genuinely need.
A case study: a global healthcare knowledge provider
Recently, we’ve had the pleasure of working with a global healthcare knowledge provider, who equips doctors and healthcare professionals with clinical tools and training support. A range of UX services helped them gain clarity on their users and what they need while also optimising their marketing campaigns.
What we did
For this client, we carried out user discovery research – getting to the heart of the information doctors need, the sources they prefer to use and the messaging that resonates with them.
As time poor professionals, flexibility was key. For each project, we recruited and conducted research with between 6 and 20 medical workers. Sessions were undertaken remotely and slotted in around busy rotas to minimise the impact on our participants.
During the sessions, respondents were questioned about their backgrounds, expectations, behaviours, needs, motivations and pain-points. This then informed further exploration of the client’s services to surface insight on how well or otherwise brochure sites, marketing assets and the overall proposition worked for their target users.
Outcomes
For those pure discovery projects, focused on better understanding their users, we were able to present our client with the opportunities in their market. How they can reach more healthcare professionals with the information they need.
Meanwhile, the projects focused on optimising marketing campaigns provided the client with clear user evidence on which campaign asset to adopt and how to improve the messaging further to truly resonate with their audience.
