Design principles are important in any industry as they help to create the best user experience possible for future visitors to your website.
Essentially, they work as guidelines that shape the decisions you make about the development and updating of the website itself.
In the healthcare industry, where people are likely to visit the websites of several different providers before making their final decision, these principles are of utmost importance.
Admittedly, knowing where to start when you have little or no experience in the web development field can be difficult, especially when the language used seems so complex.
This is why we are breaking things down to explain exactly which design principles you must include when developing or updating a healthcare website going into 2020.
Keep Things Simple
When creating a website, it’s easy to get carried away and start thinking about the more complex things you want to add to your website to stand out from your competitors.
You may have already looked at those in the healthcare field and thought that their websites are too simplistic, but this is for a reason.
In this industry, in particular, cluttered websites can be a turn-off as they give the illusion that your organization as a whole isn’t very organized.
It can also make the website harder to navigate, making moving between pages difficult and increasing your chances of losing customers who visit your website first.
In addition to this, having features that don’t serve a purpose taking up code on your site can unnecessarily slow it down and make people exit a tab before it’s even finished loading.
To do this, think about the amount of white space you’re using, and utilize images and videos to break up long sections of text.
Maintain Consistency
One of the biggest design principles troubling healthcare websites going into 2020 will be maintaining consistency.
This essentially means matching design elements across the board to give a united look on all pages of your website.
From typography to button styles and even the types of images and videos used on your website, you should aim for these all to be the same.
One mistake that many healthcare websites make for example is that they’ll randomly insert cartoon images when they’ve used real-life ones up until that point.
Again, this can make you seem disorganized and ruins any brand recognition you’ve built up until that point.
Prioritize Accessibility
According to Digital Authority Partners, technology is key in helping to place patients at the center of the healthcare system.
Things like AI and Blockchain are, however, useless if you are unable to maintain the basics.
To maximize this innovating change in healthcare, you should be going back to basics and ensuring your website design is fully accessible.
This is especially true as people with disabilities are likely to access your services more than those without them.
Knowing where to start can be difficult, but making sure to abide by the minimum online ADA requirements is a good place to start.
Knowing how to do this may sound complicated, but most web developers will do this automatically if you’ve gone through one.
If not, going through the WCAG 2.1 summary and making sure your website can do everything outlined will ensure you’re covered.
Think About Mobile Compatibility
In 2018, over half of all website traffic from around the globe was generated from mobile phones, an upward trend that’s continued into 2019.
This means that making your website mobile compatible is no longer an optional choice.
Especially as a healthcare website, you should be optimizing all opportunities to pick up traffic and potential customers.
By doing this, you are increasing your chances of getting visited by one-off visitors and those who may not have access to a computer.
This design will also increase your SEO score on Google.
Consider Your Loading Times
As internet usage has increased, people have begun demanding more from the websites they visit, and not meeting these expectations can have disastrous consequences.
A 2017 Google report makes this clear, showing that the probability of bouncing from a website increases from 32% with a loading speed of 1-3 seconds to 123% for up to 10 seconds.
With so many competitors in the healthcare field, then, your facility would be doing itself no favors if it didn’t try and make the loading time as low as possible.
You can easily do this by optimizing image sizes, combining code into a central CSS or JavaScript file, and compressing code to speed up the time it takes to load.
Create Innovative Designs With Patients In Mind
According to HealthcareWeekly, patient engagement is powered by digital innovation, so it should always be at the forefront of your mind when creating a healthcare website.
Though keeping things simple is important, if you’ve managed the accessibility aspect, you should be thinking about how you can integrate the latest technology into your website.
This could include creating secure access to a patient portal using blockchain technology so that patients can access their Electronic Health Records (EHRs) on the go.
It may also involve using AI and big data to determine user behavior, which can then be used to further personalize someone’s user experience.
Regardless of what you choose to do, keeping up to date with your competitors is crucial for entering the digital revolution in 2020 and continuing to provide what consumers want.
Summary
Although you may not immediately think of design principles as an important part of creating a healthcare website, this article should show you that the opposite is true.
By maintaining the crucial ones listed above, from accessibility to loading times, you will be ensuring that potential future patients are getting the best possible idea of your website.
It can also improve your Google ranking, and lower your bounce rate if your website is appealing to the eye and easy to look at.
Most importantly, however, these design principles are absolutely essential if you’re looking to provide a user experience that will make visitors want to visit your facility in person.
Anton Burch is a freelance content writer currently working at Digital Authority Partners to education readers about user experience, design and marketing best practices.