New eye clinic in town
Jaroslawa Cederbald is a polish surgeon living in Sweden. She worked hard to be one of the best cataract surgeons and to open her own clinic. She came to me asking for a website that will be good positioned, professional looking and last but not least personal, warm and reassuring.
WHAT EXCITED ME about this project the most was stepping into different then usual shoes – an elder with sight problems (mainly cataract).
THE BIGGEST ISSUE in this project was a language barrier and lack of micro copy control.
I don't speak Swedish, so I prepared guides in English to get them rewritten in Swedish.
Role
UX/UI designer
Tools
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
Website Builder (one.com)
We are opening the clinic 1st of September
Jaroslawa came to me in the middle of June 2020 asking for a website that will be launched before 1st of September.
Her Swedish husband, Fredrik already had an idea for a website, I also got content written by him. That sounded like great news – less work for me. Unfortunately after translating the text I was to find out that it sounded more like a doctor thesis than website content. Not great news in the end, because additionally to building a website I had to explain Fredrik the rules of website language and convince him to rewrite everything.
It felt late already, so I had to act quick.
Let's start with the basics
What's important about this clinic?
Most modern equipment
Best practices in hygiene and safety
Very experienced surgeon with high ethics
Warm and caring staff
Contract with region, so many services are refunded
Main user of this website is a 65+ person with cataract. That means he sees everything differently than others – the picture is blurred, less visible.
He is looking for a clinic around offering cataract surgery for free. He is really scared of the surgery itself and wants to know as much as he can about it.
Even though he is using internet he can be overwhelmed by too many options, animations or OMG pop-ups.
Who's the user?
What does it mean for the design?
Research that I have made showed me what struggles seniors face when surfing the web. Knowing them I came up with 10 points for my design brief regarding Starrmedica website:
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Simple Navigation
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Standard conventions in design
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Minimize vertical scrolling
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Good contrast
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Color use to highlight importance
6. Big fonts
7. Clear commands
8. Detailed articles
9. Professional look
10. Personal feeling
Let's think how to make it most visible for Google.
In order to make Starrmedica's website well positioned I needed to establish what does it mean in this case. What the user needs, what he wants to read and how will he look for it. I came up with 3 main ways of him looking for optical help.
What's needed on the website then?
How will patient get here?
Patient gets referral for surgery from his oculist. Either the oculist says where to get surgery or patient will have to find it on his own.
He is looking for a clinic nearby that will do it good, but most importantly his insurance will pay for it.
1
1
Big emphasize on clinic's contract with Uppsala's Region (that's what makes the services free)
2
2
Patient has a problem with eyes, haven't been to a doctor yet, doesn't know what is happening, so he googles the symptoms.
Articles about diseases treated in Starrmedica with questions in titles and answers user is looking for.
3
3
Patient heard through a grapevine that there is a great polish doctor, Jaroslawa Lauer (who changed her surname recently) and they are looking for her in internet.
Many referrals to Jaroslawa, her previous name and polish roots.
Beside well written content for better positioning in search it needs external links from valuable sources. That's why I told owners how it works and which websites will be best for that link.
Ok, let's design it.
Website's structure
Having simplicity of design in mind I created menu with names inspired by competitors, so they are familiar to users.
Designing home page I had in mind that some of my users are not going to click trough further, so it needed to include a shortcut of all information. It's also great for positioning.
Checking competitors websites I have noticed that 'treatments' are not clickable, they only reveal secondary menu. I know that it would be confusing for my users, so created a page that will show all the pages in submenu.
One of the most important goals of this website was showing professionalism and personal warmth of Jaroslawa - founder and surgeon in this clinic. I have decided that website should start with her picture and a message from her. Then I got a feedback that Swedish people do not appreciate one person standing out. They see a success as a teamwork, so I changed that approach later.
Most of pages are ended with contact forms for easy reach.
Designing the content of website I had two things in mind: persona and Google algorithm. I wanted the user to get many information about diseases to be comforted before procedure and trust Starrmedica staff to get it done there.
To increase the chance of good positioning I decided to write headings as questions users might write in Google search.
With new knowledge about Swedish people I had to achieve personal feeling in different way than I originally assumed. I decided to do it in 'about us' section. Each person working there is first described in 3rd person for professionalism and then quoted in first person to show personal character.
Main persona is looking for a free surgery, so I repeated information about clinic's contract with region healthcare on each site describing diseases to reassure there are no extra fees.
Website's look
Having my user's well being in mind I decided to go with one font for all content. They will vary in color, size and style depending of reference.
I decided to use colors of already existing logo for consistency. I also created icons and schemes matching the style.
Heading 1
HEADING 2
Heading 3
Paragraph
Important part in it
Very important part in it
Picture description
It's end of August and we are still missing a lot of content...
First launch
Jaroslawa and Fredrik had a lot of work with soon to be opened clinic, so they didn't have enough time for creating all of the content. We have decided to launch first version of website. Thanks to a good plan Home page served perfectly as a landing page. It had all the information needed. This way Starrmedica was already in
Launch no.2
After I got the rest of content for basic website structure (without all the diseases descriptions) I filled the blanks and published full website.
Still not it...
Website looks great, but because of the mess and rush around it didn't really check all the boxes. By focusing on 'minimized vertical scroll' I didn't make the text big enough. This time I took more time and deepened my research about sight with cataract and it led me to new assumption. Don't use different colors. Use one in different shades.
I adjusted the website to that using different shades of pink. I also made text bigger, which is not easy to find a compromise between too small for sick sight and too big for normal one. Now I am waiting for feedback from Jaroslawa's patients. Go to the website >
I feel that this project is a success.
I keep on having great feedback from Jaroslawa patients.
Jaroslawa herself payed me extra for my investment and care for the project.