A collaborative cure for online confusion

DDG and Eastern Health collaborate to create a website with clarity, vitality and maximum visitor-centricity.

Over time, websites for large multi-site organisations tend to unfold haphazardly, meshing multi-contributor content into cluttered, un-navigable and unappealing experiences. Brands get lost in the muddle and site visitors often leave empty-handed - without the answers or solutions they came for.

Eastern Health engaged DDG to develop a brand-defining website to give visitors what they came for and the organisation means to keep it that way.

Eastern Health is a large metropolitan health service, providing care to Melbourne’s diverse eastern community. From eight major sites (including four hospitals) and 23 different locations, it serves more than 800,000 people across an area of 2800 square kilometres.

Although the public recognised the individual hospital names, there was limited understanding of Eastern Health as the overarching brand. Research indicated that site traffic comprised 70% careers enquires, 17% GPs and the rest general.

With 8000 staff and hundreds of departments to consider, DDG recognised that an intensive collaborative process was called for.

A working party was established to engage Eastern Health staff in the development process, ensuring the integrity of the site information and fostering a sense of ownership and expectation.

DDG conducted more than 20 one-on-one interviews with key stakeholders and a series of workshops. “We focused on giving everyone a voice, ensuring each participant was heard and understood,” explains Jim Thompson, DDG’s Director of Web Services.

“Consultation was premised on putting ourselves into the shoes of the visitor. For example, the Careers introduction page offers three very clear pathways that address why you would choose to work here, the current vacancies and the graduate program. Previously, clicking on Careers took visitors directly to the jobs board with no promotion of Eastern Health as an employer of choice.

“And rather than listing a conglomerate of information, the first page of Maternity Services funnels enquiry between pregnant women looking to organise their care and those seeking postnatal care and advice.”

“Our research showed that most GP visits are to access outpatient information and referral templates so we focussed on making that easy through the GP Portal.”

“Our approach is that the website is like a series of doors, where every navigational click opens up a new information ‘space’ to the visitor where their specific question or problem is addressed without having to search through copious volumes of cluttered content. Highly-sought data such as site locations, opening hours, contact details and service options are highly visible. The new site offers around 700 pages, compared with the previous 7,000.”

Following analysis of all the stakeholder and staff inputs, DDG worked up a “wireframe” for the site – a working blueprint without any visual design that defines where the content goes and how it interrelates and performs.

“Once the initial requirements were gathered, we deployed a number of departments as pilots, trialling the content structure.” Ultimately, the navigational structure was based on these pilots.

“After trialling proved the efficacy of the wireframe, we went on to populate the pages and incorporate the visual design.”

The design approach created a non-sterile, friendly site climate driven by real photographs of real patients and real staff, rather than clinical-looking images of non-credible people.

“The entire process was achieved in under 12 months – a remarkable result considering that Eastern Health had to gather, review, re-purpose and re-write so much content.”

Behind the effortless visitor interface is a full-bloom Content Management System (CMS) with in-house updates enabled via an integrated matrix system.

Jim explains: “The Eastern Health CMS is the perfect example of a truly-integrated editor. Simply by selecting the relevant themes in the custom-designed style wizard, content portal formats are dynamically generated into the appropriate pages on the site. This maintains the integrity of the pages and ultimately presents a cleaner, more congruent expression of the brand.”

The multiple locations and the different components of services conducted across the locations are managed in the CMS via a template matrix allowing simple allocation of services to locations – a complex structure made simple.

“A unified effort from the DDG and Eastern Health teams has paid off. We are confident this is one of Australia’s best hospital websites in terms of positive visitor experience and brand consistency.” 

View their website by visiting http://www.easternhealth.org.au