Revamping a Healthcare or Pharma Website? Start with a UX Audit!

Imagine that you need to redesign a website intended for patients or healthcare providers. Maybe the current website looks dated, or it is not meeting your goals. Or your company is launching a medication and designing a new brand website. How do you find out what the patients and providers need and create a site that addresses their needs and aligns with your commercial goals?

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Starting with a UX Audit can help you identify user experience problems and solutions to drive engagement, conversion, and patient and provider adoption of your website or app.

An opinion-driven process does not work.

Most websites are built by stakeholders through an opinion-driven process and often do not work for the users, particularly in such complex industries as healthcare and pharma.

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Healthcare and pharma UX also must consider the needs of caregivers and healthcare providers. Additionally, various regulations also play a role in healthcare UX design, especially when it comes to pharmaceutical industry.

Studies suggest that patients and providers rely on pharma websites, but these websites underperform. A recent survey found that a considerable number of patients are turning to pharmaceutical brand websites for medical information, with more than half (52%) reporting that they use these websites—almost the same percentage as those who consult their doctors for such information (54%).¹

However, data also shows that most websites often underperform. Overall, 72% of websites receive a failing grade of 59/100 or lower.² Pharma websites specifically have a 65% average bounce (abandonment) rate, while a bounce rate of 56% to 70% is considered high.³

A website redesign can only help if it’s done with the right strategy behind it.

If your website's KPIs are falling short of your goals, it may be tempting to redesign, but an opinion-based redesign would involve just another round of guesswork. Heatmaps and analytics tools may offer some insights into what pages the users are visiting and how they spend their time there. However, these numbers alone won’t provide the reasons for their behavior.

For example, a short time spent on a page and a high bounce rate may suggest that patients get frustrated and leave quickly. Or it could mean that they are able to find the information they need right away and leave satisfied. The solutions in each of these cases would be very different. In the latter case, you may have an opportunity to provide more useful information to boost meaningful user engagement.

Not sure how to get started? A UX Audit can help.

If you are not sure how to begin improving user experience for your patients and providers, a UX Audit can help to get started.

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It identifies friction points for your patients and HCPs and presents an actionable plan with quick wins that will help to build brand trust and provide a supportive experience.

You should consider a UX Audit when:

You have never done a UX Audit
Creating or redesigning a website
Launching a new medication
Applying for an FDA approval
Conducting product lifecycle management
Recruiting patients for clinical trials

The UX Audit process

Beware of generic, cookie-cutter approaches to a UX Audit that may not address your specific needs. A thorough UX Audit is a nuanced and complex process that involves a series of refined steps and methodologies that are selected based on the unique characteristics of your website and goals.

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These data is then analyzed to identify areas of improvement and potential solutions to enhance the user experience.

Moreover, a comprehensive UX Audit should be tailored to meet your business needs and goals. This means considering factors such as your target audience, business objectives, and brand values when developing recommendations for improving the website's user experience. The ultimate goal of a UX Audit is to identify user experience problems and solutions to drive engagement, conversion, and patient and provider adoption of your website.

Finding the right partner for a pharma UX Audit is the first step.

Finding the right partner to conduct a UX Audit for a pharma website is a task that requires careful consideration. There are two main factors to consider: experience conducting UX Audits and understanding the unique requirements and challenges of healthcare and pharma industries.

First, it is important to find a partner who has the necessary skills and experience in UX research and can conduct an audit efficiently. Look for a partner who has a track record of delivering high-quality UX Audits, has a deep understanding of user behavior, and can provide actionable insights and recommendations.

Lastly, it is also important to find a partner who is willing to work collaboratively. By selecting your partner wisely, you can ensure that your website is optimized for user experience and delivers the best possible results for your business.

How Intechnic can help

At Intechnic, our mission is to reimagine patient and provider UX. We understand the patients’ and HCPs’ unmet needs and know how to create an empathetic user experience that will guide and educate your patients, caregivers, and providers. We have completed dozens of successful projects across multiple therapy areas, understand unique industry needs, and are passionate about improving patient lives.

We are also not “handcuffed” or policy-dependent. In fact, we like to challenge the status quo and apply 25+ years of experience from healthcare and We have developed a other industries.

We have developed a UX Audit specifically for pharma, and usually begin with a workshop (or a series of workshops) to thoroughly understand your goals and pain points, so we can build consensus and future-proof your website.

Then, we conduct the industry’s most comprehensive assessment to evaluate your website based on established UX practices, quantitative and qualitative analysis, and competitive analysis.

We will test your website and conduct interviews with real patients and HCPs to understand their pain points, motivations, and ways to improve their experience.

At the end, we deliver an actionable report and walk you through the findings. You receive a prioritized action list to deliver quick wins and strategies to take your website to the next level.