MEDICAL AND HEALTHCARE WEBSITE DESIGN TIPS

 

The Internet has become an essential tool for healthcare providers and manufacturers of medical products alike and effectively localized websites can exponentially extend the reach to patients, distributors or buyers of medical products or services far beyond traditional borders.

While healthcare providers in the United States aim to provide trusted medical information from doctors and researchers to non-English speaking communities within our borders, makers of medical products or diagnostic tools aim to give their brand access to international markets

But "going global" requires attention to, and awareness of, the culture and practices of the target markets. There are both design considerations (you do not want your website to exude a “Last-minute Retrofit from English" appearance) and marketing considerations (are you using culturally appropriate messages).

Here are 10 tips that will help you get your message across; first, in English, then giving a smooth extension to other languages/markets:

 

1. AESTHETIC APPEAL

An orderly, minimalistic design is the key to a successful medical web site. Images can be psychologically moving; however, too many can distract from the user's intention of gaining knowledge and from the imperative information given on the site.

Here is an example which effectively uses categories, representative images, subcategories, and even a "Shop All" button (while it does the same as clicking the category title, the button location, below the limited subcategory list, follows a persons' natural eye movement when one looks down through the list and does not see what they are looking for): http://www.allegromedical.com

2. FUNCTIONAL FOCUS

Site visitors will want clear and concise information. Most times, they will need it to be immediately accessible, and your site should deliver it to them in an organized and user-friendly manner. One topic per page is the easiest way to achieve functional focus. News, information, testimonials, plus video and other multi-media content on health related subjects can be profuse, so effectively organizing it on your website can be challenging.

Here's a good example of immediate presentation that does not use drop-down menus; each topic is a link to another page: http://www.cardinal.com/mps/

3. CONSISTENCY

Keep the focus and fluidity of a site by keeping the pages similar in layout and by following its overall outline. Not only will you be perceived as more established, but you will also make your visitors feel a sense of reliability in your organization. Hold the visitor's focus and gain his or her trust by maintaining a consistent look-and-feel throughout your site.

An excellent example of "focus" and consistency is Invacare (www.invacare.com), whose immediate impression of a site whose focus is "information" for you, and easy access to that information. Note that the home page even has the courage to provide a "Product Recalls" link (how often have you seen that?) - Rather than fear, this might just convey a sense of rare honesty, and therefore inspire confidence.

 

4. PAGE STRUCTURE

Not every visitor has the time to read your entire site, which is why the most engaging and important information on each page should always be immediately visible, and invite a closer scrutiny.

A good technique is to put links at the top of the page to "lower down" information, so your viewer has the ability to quickly access sub-topics of interest; for example, list all the FAQs, without any answers — clicking an FAQ gets you to that specific question and answer.

An excellent example is the National Institute of Health, http://publicaccess.nih.gov/FAQ.htm, which has three main sections indicated at the top, each of which licks to that section's beginning, under which all the FAQs in that section are themselves links to the FAQ answer. What the site needs, however, is an always-visible "Back To Section" button, for quick return "up" to where the FAQ click was done.

 

5. NAVIGATION AND MENU SYSTEMS

Your medical site's navigation buttons and/or menus should be as brief as possible but still give a clear idea of what can be expected from that selection. A top-level menu-bar, with drop-down menus, common to all pages, is a common technique.

But for some really innovative products/services navigation, check out Apple's horizontal product-image scrollbar at http://www.apple.com/mac/, as shown below.  As you scroll from Accessories to Macs to Applications to Servers, the actual (clickable) images of the products appear: Sometimes, stepping "outside" of your own market, for website design examples, will provide ways to impress your company's image on the user.

6. DOWNLOAD TIME

Not everyone had broadband internet access, especially in foreign markets.  Images and multimedia content can slow a page download to the point where a site visitor "gives up" --- and you don't want that!

There are various techniques for achieving a rapid download time; using them will demonstrate that your organization is not only efficient, but considerate of customers.

Key methods: (1) Image compression; (2) Allow user to "Skip Flash Content" (Flash scripts can be notoriously slow); (3) Use embedded javascript to detect internet connection type; (4) control the "sequence" of page load, so that some information appears quickly, and get's  the user's attention.

7. LOCALIZATION CONSIDERATIONS

Once basic design, layout, organization, etc. have been established, there are extremely important "engineering" considerations to make certain are part of the underlying code and design (that is, the HTML code seen by the web browser.)  Having a properly engineered "English" site will make localization into other languages/markets smooth, fast, and surprisingly inexpensive.

See our separate paper on website internationalization.

8. MEDICAL MARKETING in the EUROPEAN UNION, and Country-Specific Requirements/Limitations

The European Union (now 27 countries) requires that for a medical product or service to be sold in a member country, that not only the advertising (including website), but also labeling, usage information, packaging, user manuals, etc. all be translated into the language of that country. Further, not all of your products/services might be legal to market in some countries.

What this means for web design: your website code must be able to do market-detection, and be able to present only that content that is both appropriate and legal for that country.

9. COLOR THEME

Much research has been done by healthcare experts, into the effect of colors to promote healing and feelings of caring and relaxation. The blue-green color that doctors wear in most hospitals came from such research many years ago. DuPont, maker of paints, even has a special healing-colors collection and offers a free booklet (see http://www2.dupont.com/Surfaces_Commercial/en_US/design_inspiration/healing_colors/index.html)

"At DuPont, we understand that the use of natural elements, and color palettes that reflect nature, can help create a healing atmosphere for patients and positive working environment for staff. That's why we've worked with leading healthcare providers, designers and architects to identify the DuPont™ Corian® Healing Colors Collection."

For a medical website, pastels in blue-green, light green, or yellow-green should be considered as excellent "theme" colors. Yellow promotes a feeling of "under control", green "relaxation, caring", and blue "stimulation".

10. Helping Users "Find" You

The best-designed, most user-friendly website will do no good if your prospective customers cannot find you. While you can pay search engines to get you "near the top", or make you a "sponsored" link, the best assurance to being found is to have appropriate META tags in your website pages.  And not just your "home" page, but ALL your pages.  These tags are invisible to users, but are the most visible and highest-priority keywords for search engines.

When your website is localized into other languages, it is critical that the translators know that they are translating search-keywords, so they can make the best judgments for analogous search keys in their languages.  Otherwise, what gets you near the top in English might make your website disappear in other markets.