Empowering Patients through Accessible Navigation
I led a patient-centered redesign of a Fortune 100 healthcare provider's website, transforming it into an intuitive and accessible resource.
Key Activities
Heuristic Audit and Diagnosis Report
Actionable Analytics and Usability Findings
Information Architecture (IA) and Sitemap
Human Impact
Access
Connection
Duration
12 months
Role
Lead UX Expert
Challenge & Vision
A Fortune 100 healthcare provider, anonymized as PulseTech, needed to enhance its digital presence to better serve its community and reinforce its commitment to patient-centric care. Their outdated website made it difficult for users to find key information and services, negatively impacting the patient experience and preventing PulseTech from achieving its mission. This challenge was an opportunity to design a more accessible and intuitive healthcare resource that prioritizes human needs.
Problem
An outdated sitemap and inconsistent navigation made it difficult for patients and caregivers to find key content like physician profiles, appointment scheduling, and health resources. This disjointed user experience caused frustration and high bounce rates. User dissatisfaction hindered PulseTech’s ability to connect with its community effectively.
Goal and Objectives
My goal was to create an empathy-driven information architecture that improves the healthcare experience for PulseTech patients and caregivers. To achieve this, I focused on three key objectives:
Audit the existing site to identify pain points
Apply user research to understand patient and caregiver needs
Develop a new sitemap and wireframes that create an intuitively organized navigation system
Role and Contributions
I was the UX lead responsible for the research and strategy phase of the project. I conducted a heuristic analysis to identify usability issues, performed card sorting and tree testing to understand user mental models, and designed wireframes and a final sitemap that addressed key pain points. My contributions focused on building foundational information architecture to guide the future development of the website and ensure it delivered a clear, accessible experience for every user.
Discover
Understanding the Problem
My first step to identifying potential UX enhancements was conducting a full heuristic analysis. I used personas and journey maps to understand the people most impacted by sitemap changes, focusing on patients and caregivers as the primary audiences. This research laid a solid foundation for the information architecture enhancements that were later validated through user testing. Grounding my recommendations in an empathetic and data-driven strategy was crucial to persuading stakeholders that the new navigation would address business needs.
Key Learnings
Navigation issues increase user frustration and site abandonment
A deep understanding of the human needs behind a sitemap drives a human-centered IA redesign
A strong research foundation makes it easier to get stakeholder buy-in on navigation recommendations
Ideate
Building the Solution
After defining the strategy for the information architecture, I created a draft sitemap. My goal was to develop high-level categorization that could scale with evolving user and business needs. The six categories in the draft sitemap labels used labels like “Find Care” and “Services & Specialties” to help patients and caregivers achieve better health outcomes. I aligned my recommendations with patient and caregiver personas, from centralizing the scattered resource pages to specifying page names with vague acronyms. The draft sitemap also improved access to new priority content from PulseTech’s recent merger.
Key Learnings
Scalability and centralization allow a sitemap to support users and businesses over time
Accessible language reduces cognitive load and makes it easier for people to achieve their goals
A strategic sitemap approach can streamline access to priority content
Validate
Refining the Experience
I conducted Card Sorting on the draft sitemap to understand how patients and caregivers expect content to be organized. Many patients and caregivers thought there were too many high-level categories, highlighting the opportunity to simplify the sitemap. Card Sorting results also showed that labels like "Find Care" were confusing and overly broad. This suggested a need for more descriptive language than the stakeholders preferred. After balancing Card Sorting data with stakeholder feedback to update the sitemap, I conducted Tree Testing to evaluate navigation paths for key tasks. Most patients and caregivers found the high-level categories helpful, especially the way medical services were categorized. The data also revealed specific areas for refinement in the deeper levels of the sitemap.
Key Learnings
Card sorting and tree testing are powerful tools to validate information architecture with real mental models
Communication is key when stakeholder preferences conflict with user research findings
Intuitive high-level categories create simpler navigation paths deeper in the site
Deliver
Proving the Impact
The final deliverables were a high-fidelity Miro sitemap and Figma navigation wireframes. My solution uses five scalable primary categories to reduce cognitive load and simplify the patient and caregiver experience. I accomplished this by organizing content into meaningful categories that resonate with patients’ mental models, incorporating searching and filtering in the navigation overlay, and grouping in-page links by their relationship to the user’s current page. By simplifying the navigation experience streamlining access to priority content, the redesigned IA supports PulseTech and their users achieve better health outcomes for patients and caregivers.
Key Learnings
Limiting the number of sitemap categories and navigation links promotes a goal-oriented IA
Effective cross-linking and content strategy ensures users have multiple ways to discover content
Elevating page functionality in navigation overlays can streamline key interactions
Measurable Outcomes
My human-centered approach to information architecture created a solution that improved the website's usability and drove tangible outcomes for PulseTech, patients, and caregivers. By creating a clearer and more intuitive navigation system, I helped the organization deliver on its mission to provide accessible healthcare resources to the community. This structure was designed and tested to boost key engagement metrics and empower users to find the information they need efficiently.
14%
reduction in bounce rate on key service pages, indicating that users were more engaged and finding content more efficiently
536
sitemap pages moved out of the root directory and assigned a strategic and data-driven categorization
1.3x
increase in traffic to appointment booking pages, directly supporting patient needs and business goals
Human Impact
While the numbers tell a powerful story, nothing captures the success of a project like a real person's experience.
Quote Statement
Quote Author
Quote Role
Personal Reflection
This project reinforced the power of a human-centric approach in an enterprise setting. I learned to advocate for user needs and data-driven insights when faced with stakeholder resistance. By focusing on the tangible impact of my work on patient and caregiver experiences, I built consensus and drove a data-informed solution that addressed business needs without sacrificing human impact. It was a powerful reminder that truly effective design is born from collaboration and a commitment to creating meaningful, positive change.
Future Considerations
To facilitate a smooth transition during PulseTech’s own implementation of the new sitemap and navigation, I equipped them with tools and documentation to advocate for its adoption and prepared the following recommendations for future improvements:
Resolve any gaps in WCAG compliance to reinforce the platform's commitment to inclusivity
Implement job searching and filtering to keep the platform scalable as the number of job postings increases
Add direct in-site messaging between candidates and recruiters, further streamlining professional connections