Improve Upon Website User Experience

Think about your website. If you were a patient considering visiting your hospital or practice, would the interface make it easy to locate services? Is it clear how to schedule an appointment? What about patients with disabilities, is your website accessible? These questions matter because your website might be the first time a patient interacts with your organization. Therefore, you want to leave a positive impression.

The team at AMNY Health Marketing offers data-driven strategies to help hospitals, private practices, senior care facilities, and similar organizations increase marketing success. Here, we stress the importance of a strong website user experience to your overall marketing efforts and how you can improve.

Why Does Website User Experience Matter?

Your web pages might have the most valuable information for a potential patient, but if the design isn’t user-friendly, it might be for naught. According to one study, 94% of users’ first impressions of a website are related to its design. Respondents pointed out issues like busy layouts and lack of navigation support. Only 6% of the feedback was about the content.

The benefit of a good website user experience (UX) begins with better usability. Patients have less confusion navigating the website, which helps them find the answers they need. It also shows them the next steps toward a solution, such as contacting the office or booking an appointment.

For your organization, positive UX bolsters the brand identity. You’ll use the same fonts, colors, and logos across pages, making it easy for patients to associate your organization with the website. What’s more, it can strengthen the credibility of your written content. An organized, consistent website makes it easier to digest content than one whose user design is more challenging – even if the accuracy and value of the content are the same.

User Experience vs. User Interface

Although user experience and interface work together, they’re distinct components of website design. UX focuses on the emotional response a patient has to your website and how that dictates their actions. For example, a bland website feels boring, diminishing engagement. Conversely, a website using the right color palette and mix of text and imagery is more eye-catching.

UX sets the foundation by organizing website information and simplifying navigation. User interface (UI) enhances these efforts with elements like color, typography, navigation aids, and action buttons. A page’s goal might be encouraging a patient to schedule an appointment. A well-defined layout makes this clear, ensuring readers know their next steps. In this instance, the UI might be an action button in a color different from the surrounding page – SCHEDULE AN APPOINTMENT TODAY. Together, these aspects help make patient decisions easier.

Tips for Healthcare Website Design

Although some features of good website user experience are consistent across the board, not every business has the same priorities for website design. What matters most for healthcare? The following are a few characteristics:

Accessibility

In the eyes of many people, access to healthcare is a human right. Ensuring your hospital or practice extends services to the entire community begins with your website. Individuals with disabilities require accommodations like screen readers, captioning on videos, and alternative image texts to have a similar experience as all patients. When your website lacks these accommodations, it limits this segment of your target audience from getting the information they need. They’re sure to turn elsewhere for care.

Consistency

Patients aren’t just looking up your website from their desktop or laptop. Perhaps more often, they research healthcare providers from their smartphones. UI responsiveness refers to delivering consistency with all pages on various devices. This means resizing elements if viewing on a small phone screen versus a laptop or tablet. All texts, images, and videos should be easy to read and play. Ultimately, you don’t want any patients to have a diminished experience, no matter the device they use.

Simplicity

The goal is to keep patients coming back. If they don’t need healthcare services right now or are still deciding, you want your website to be memorable so it’s easy to maneuver when they return. Simplicity doesn’t mean a lifeless website for the sake of easy navigation. Instead, it’s clarity. All elements, from headers to CTA buttons, contribute to a clear pathway for the patient to follow.

User-Centric

For many patients, a good website user experience is a personalized one. Personalization requires a firm understanding of your target audience and analyzing patient data. Your findings should reveal a hierarchy of patient needs, and you can use these insights to put the most important information on the web pages easiest for patients to locate. Flexibility also supports a user-centric experience, with functions like shortcuts and advanced search options anticipating different user intents.

AMNY Health Marketing Can Help You Get Creative with Your Website

Your website reflects your hospital, practice, or facility. Leave a strong impression, encouraging patients to choose you over other providers in the area, with an effective website user experience. If your website could use an overhaul but you’re not sure how to begin, turn to AMNY Health Marketing. Our award-winning creative team offers numerous capabilities to help make your website more engaging and draw in new patients. Contact us today for more insights and learn how we can help you.