MarkHolmes
Role /
Visual Designer / Project Lead
Duration /
2 weeks design / 10 weeks total
Year /
2018 / 2019
Tools Used /
Photoshop
After Effects
Blog Design For Overlake Medical Center
Last spring, Barbara Pamplin spent 50 days at Overlake Medical Center (OMC). She woke up one day feeling chest pains, rushed to the hospital where she spend the next two months undergoing three open heart surgeries. She died three times and lives to tell her story in Overlake’s community publication Healthy Outlook.
Like all printed pieces, Healthy Outlook eventually ends up in the trash along with Barbara’s story. This makes it very difficult for a business to measure its success.
Problem: Overlake had concerns about their ability to measure engagement with their community and needed a way to track patient interest but lacked the appropriate tool. I was tasked with designing the Healthy Outlook blog for OMC. The blog would host original content, be an entry point for the brand and a way to start building an owned list in order to remain competitive.
My Role: As one of two senior designers, I led the design of healthyoutlook.org. I collaborated with and presented to six marketing specialist as well as the development agency used for the site build. I provided the following deliverables:
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Competitive analysis
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Ideation for web and mobile
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Web and mobile comps
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Bug notes and project recap
Kickoff
The marketing team determined that a blog would be a good solution to OMC's problem. The blog will improve SEO, showcase Overlake as thought leaders and create an entry point into the Overlake world.
I found a majority of the healthcare sites are convoluted and dull. More inspiration was pulled from unrelated fields with similar clean aesthetics comparable to Healthy Outlook's brand. The other designer and I diagramed trends, patterns and functionality we felt would translate well to our future design. From there I began my ideation process.
Thinking Ahead (Design Objectives)
I think strategically about the effects my design will have after implementation (or even initial view). Healthcare has a slow process, lots of barriers and considering the domino effect a project like this can cause helps my get clear on my goals and form constraints. I determined the following objectives to align with stakeholders:
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Find solutions for capture emails for our owned list.
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Design an experience that engages users with the greater Seattle (Eastside) community.
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Create a design choice that unify the brand.
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Keep the main site in mind to create cohesion between the two products.
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Find solutions to elevate patient stories.
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Provide delightful moments. I love unexpected interactions that most people don’t see value in. A nice hover or scrolling effect can provide a spark or joy that tells the user “we’re thinking about you”.
Get Buy In (Ideation)
To get users to sign up, I designed the initial view with newsletter signup front and center. Incorporating social buttons on article pages would allow us to track popular articles and spread the blog to other platforms. I presented the concepts to internal stakeholders to create an alignment of values and expectations. After the pitch, the marketing teamed decided to merge a few design comps and I moved forward into solidifying the final design.
Clean & Simple
To start building an owned list, I designed a banner underneath the hero to entice users to sign up for the newsletter. While a popup or sticky CTA might be more successful in capturing emails – healthcare consumers are more sensitive when they are marketed to, thus more likely to not return to the site. Similarly, I designed the submit feedback to be inline to keep the site clean.
Patient Stories
Patient stories promote the mission and values of integrity, compassion, agility, respect and engagement (OMC's core values). To build a sense of connection to the interview subject, the “Stories” article is distinct from the standard article layout. As the user scrolls, absorbing a deeply personal story, a parallax effect occurs. This effect allows the patient's emotions to come through the screen.
Supporting Collateral
For this project I was also tasked with creating a few supporting piece such as a paid social ad, flatscreen video for hospital waiting areas and multiple emails for a welcoming campaign and newsletter for the site. The video above communicates the value of healthyoutlook.org though shared fundamental values.
The Result
After the soft launch I received positive feedback from my director.
“It’s such a beautiful site with great content – It really is.”
The CEO and other c-suite members were impressed with the outcome of the design. The look and feel conveyed the consumer focused vision they were in search of. They decided to invest in a re-skin for our main site to make the visual design consistent with the new blog.
It’s only been a few months but the site is slowly attracting readership and building our owned list. About 500 subscribers have been collected since launch.
I also generated supporting marketing email templates and social videos that have been successful in helping attract readers. The emails have dug us out of a blacklist slump and the video had a 90% viewership lasting over 10 seconds.
Site came in under budget and on time. Due to time constraints and development complications the parallax story concept was only partially built out and is slated to launch at a later date.
