Gillette Children’s Hospital: Kids Health Matters
A publication dedicated to the Gillette patients, families, and team members who inspire and inform.
Project Overview
Final Deliverable
Other Key Deliverables:
Challenge
How might we better engage visitors of the Gillette Children’s website with the Kids Health Matters publication?
Solution
Increase the visibility of Kids Health Matters within the Gillette website hierarchy and improve topic navigation.
Role: UX Researcher
Tools: Google Sheets, Zoom, Sketch, PowerPoint
Timeline: 1 week
Process
Heuristic Analysis, Remote Usability Testing, Data Synthesis, Findings and Recommendations Report
Here’s what the client had to say:
“Our department at Gillette Children’s is so happy with our Prime experience ... We are moving forward and doing our best to implement ideas from these reports to make our public facing website better for our patients, their families, and other site visitors as well. Thank you!” - Gillette Children’s Hospital, Marketing and Communications Department
Research Methodology
Heuristic Analysis
An expert analysis of the Kids Health Matters website was first conducted. Using Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics and their severity rating, I completed the six key user tasks that Gillette highlighted for Kids Health Matters:
1. Read a Kids Health Matters story.
2. Share a Kids Health Matters story.
3. Find a particular type of story (e.g., a certain type of condition or care routine).
4. Subscribe to Kids Health Matters.
5. Learn more about the care provided to an individual featured in the Kids Health Matters story.
6. Donate to Gillette Foundation.
Afterward, an Excel spreadsheet compiling the highest-priority pain points listed was created. In total, four high-priority pain points related to tasks 4 and 5 were discovered:
Confusing “Orthopedics” page.
The orthopedics topic page had too much medical jargon, making it difficult to find a specific treatment mentioned in the article.
Bold text is not easily scannable.
Bold text at the bottom of the article highlighting “Vetebral Body Tethering” is not easily scannable, making it confusing when clicking the link and being taken somewhere unexpected.
No confirmation pop-up when using the right-side menu to subscribe to Kids Health Matters.
This makes it difficult for users to understand where they are at in the subscription process.
Footer includes another option for subscribing that is not consistent with the right-side menu option for subscribing.
This method for subscribing shows a confirmation pop-up, and it also asks for email & name unlike the previous method for subscribing using the right-side menu.
Why conduct an expert analysis?
Usability test conducted via Zoom
To help familiarize myself with the Kids Health Matters publication and develop empathy with users during interviews.
Usability Testing
As a team, we conducted remote user interviews with participants, allowing them to use the Kids Health Matters publication site and observe any pain points or moments of joy. One researcher moderated an interview while the rest of the team took up separate notetaking responsibilities related to notable quotes, observations (e.g., body language), and pain points.
“Our department at Gillette Children’s is so happy with our Prime experience ... We are moving forward and doing our best to implement ideas from these reports to make our public facing website better for our patients, their families, and other site visitors as well. Thank you!” - Gillette Children’s Hospital, Marketing and Communications Department
Findings and Recommendations Report
Team findings were compiled into an Excel spreadsheet and synthesized into a report. The four highest-priority pain points discussed in the report are listed below:
To view the entire Findings and Recommendations Report, click here.
1. Low Kids Health Matters visibility
2. Confusing topic navigation
3. Low motivation to subscribe
4. Low motivation to donate
Of all the problems listed, low Kids Health Matters visibility was at the top of the list. As interviews continued to be conducted, it became apparent that Kids Health Matters’s inclusion in the overall Gillette website hierarchy felt like an afterthought. As such, visitors of the site expressed confusion over what Kids Health Matters was and how to navigate it.
3 out of 9 participants expressed confusion over the distinction between Kids Health Matters and the main Gillette website.
“I did not know this was a blog page” - Participant 4
"The searching, anytime I went off the main page, I was wondering if I was still in the kid's thing or not.” - Participant 2
“It’s just kind of confusing, like earlier when I was trying to find the condition [using the quick links]” - Participant 5
Users found little value in engaging with subsequent Kids Health Matters services such as donations, subscriptions, and article exploration.
“It’s inconvenient, I would get frustrated and just go to Google.” - Participant 5
Recommendations
Wireframe concept of what the recommendation may look like.
Make Kids Health Matters more distinct and visible within the Gillette Website hierarchy by including its name in the blue navigational header and the About Us section.
During user interviews, participants tended to use the blue navigational header, the Quick Links dropdown menu, and the main Gillette search bar (not the KHM specific search bar). All three options directed users outside of KHM and into the broader Gillette website, yet they seemed to be the natural actions taken by our participants. Including Kids Health Matters somewhere on the navigational bar and within the About Us section may increase the visibility and hierarchy of Kids Health Matters within the Gillette website.
Another suggestion would be to have a sticky Kids Health Matters header that scrolls along with the user to remind them where they are at within the site, and a specific “Go back to main page” button to create further distinction.
For a complete look at the final report, click here to view the PDF.
Project Retrospective
The biggest takeaway from this project was learning how different my findings from the heuristic analysis were compared to the findings from the usability tests. This further reinforces the importance of speaking with and observing real people navigate a design in order to truly understand what people need and expect.
