Rogers Behavioral Health
IA Redesign
Overview
For my graduate Interaction Design course, I evaluated and redesigned the Information Architecture (IA) of the Rogers Behavioral Health website.
Rogers Behavioral Health is one of the leading providers of mental health treatment nationally. Rogers currently provides multiple levels of behavioral health care in nine states, and continues to expand the breadth and availability of treatment.
The Problem
Because organizational and usability issues may impact whether a prospective patient receives or continues mental health treatment, the consequences of Rogers' current IA are both financial and human.
Objectives
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Understand the Current IA: Evaluate the structure, organization, and presentation of information related to finding and financing treatment.
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Ideate Alternative: Propose recommendations to improve site navigation and page layout for these key tasks.
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Assess Solutions: Perform IA and usability testing to assess the recommended changes and inform future iterations
My Role
My role throughout this project was to conduct user testing, analyze data, and propose design recommendations for the Rogers website.
The Process
Create personas to empathize with users and focus design decisions
These personas embody the most common goals that users aim to accomplish when visiting the Rogers site:
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Seeking treatment for a mental health concern
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Finding options for financing treatment
Click image for a larger view.
Click image for a larger view.
Understand the current information architecture
Objective: Investigate the site’s organizational structure to identify the changes that need to be made.
Method: Developed a Content Inventory using a spreadsheet to catalogue over 480 items on the current Rogers Behavioral Health site.
An audit of over 480 discrete items on the site revealed these key insights:
Inconsistent application of navigational structure
Rogers categorizes its available programs according to the following structure Diagnosis>Level of Care>Program. For several diagnoses, Rogers provided services that were not immediately visible in the main navigation.
Jargon-heavy labels
Vocabulary used throughout the first- and second-level navigation requires understanding of psychological/medical terminology.
Interchangeable terminology. Users may locate the majority of services based on the type of service and level of care (e.g. Partial Hospitalization Program for Anxiety). Several programs were listed by location-specific names (e.g. Nashotah Residential) without providing context to identify what these programs provide.
Important info was hidden
Information related to insurance, billing, and financial assistance were located in lower levels of navigation.
Over-emphasis on text
Numerous links to program contacts were hidden within paragraphs of text and were not easily retrievable from site navigation.
Gain the users' perspective on site organization
Objective: Understand users' expectations of the site's organization
Method: Two rounds of card sorting tasks using Optimal Workshop
Round 1: Open Card Sort (N=6)
36 cards based on the existing site labels
Results were too broad and revealed the need for simpler, more specific navigational items.
Round 2: Hybrid Card Sort (N=10)
16 new cards and 6 categories
Considering the results of the content inventory and Round 1 of cart sorting, I based the first 5 categories on the changes that should be made to the current main navigation items:
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Contact Us
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Explore Treatment Options
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What to Expect
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Finance Your Care
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Find a Location
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I don’t Know (for users unsure how to categorize a card)
I also used this round to assess the intuitiveness of the next level of navigation. The goal was to decrease the number of third-level navigation items, so these cards were a consolidation of many items from Round 1.
Results
There was a greater consistency in categorization patterns, suggesting the established categories and navigation items were effective.
Assess the new navigational structure
Objective: Evaluate the proposed navigational hierarchy
Method: Tree Testing and First-click testing using Optimal Workshop
Tree Testing with Treejack (N=14)
Witha the overall navigational structure, I created wireframes that reflected two key tasks that represent users' common actions on the site:
Finding Treatment
Participants were asked to locate transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) as a treatment for depression.
There was a 79% direct success rate by following the desired path:
Locating Financing Options
Participants were asked to locate the financial assistance program application.
There was a 93% direct success rate by following the desired path:
Explore our treatment options
finance your care
Treatment programs for adults
DEPRESSION & OTHER MOOD DISORDERS
tMS TREATMENT
financial assistance
financial assistance program
Financial assistance application
The overall high success rate for both tasks suggested that the proposed navigational structure was viable.
First-click Testing with Chalkmark (N=9)
Then conducted first-click testing to complete the same tasks of finding treatment and locating financing options.
Task 1: Finding Treatment
Participants clicked through prompts that displayed the process flow of seeking information on TMS as a treatment for adult depression.
Where would you click to learn more about..
Prompt 1: ...treatment programs at Rogers Behavioral health?
Prompt 2: ...treatment options for depression?
Prompt 3: ...TMS services at Rogers?
While, prompts 1-3 had a total success rate of 78%, users had the most difficulty with Prompt 2.
This heatmap shows each users' clicks for Prompt 2.
Success: Click the link in the sidebar or under the Depression paragraph
Failures: Clicked the header for Depression section or the search bar
Participants generally understood where to "find information" (i.e., somewhere among the Depression and Other Mood Disorder info).
Task 2: Locating Financing Options
Participants clicked through prompts that displayed the process flow of downloading the financial assistance application.
Where would you click to learn more about..
Prompt 1: ...financing options at Rogers?
Prompt 2: ...financial assistance that Rogers provides for patience?
Prompt 3: ...the Financial Assistance Program?
Despite high success rates for this task, failures also clicked the section headings throughout each prompt.
Key Findings
The overall high success rates for both tasks suggests the proposed navigational hierarchy is viable.
Insight: Users expect section titles to navigate to additional information.
Recommendation: Rather than include the link at the bottom, make the section headers noticeable links that navigate to related pages.
Refine and visualize the new navigational hierarchy
After incorporating the data that I'd collected thus far, I recommend the following changes to the top-level navigation:
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Clarify navigation labels to make their purposes transparent
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Display calls to action prioritizing users motivations
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Feature the admissions process (Begin Your Treatment)
Recommendations for lower-level navigation items:
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Simplify jargon-heavy labels
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Clarify the steps to finding treatment
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Maintain a consistent navigation choices throughout each level
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Establish subcategories to highlight multiple steps in finding and financing treatment
initial top-level categories
What We Treat
Why Choose rogers
What to Expect
Our locations
Treatment Outcomes
final top-level categories
Explore treatment options
prepare for treatment
finance your care
find a location
Contact us
After establishing the new navigational hierarchy and refining labels with more clarity, I created a site map to visualize the final recommendation.
Click image to magnify.
Propose directions for future research
With more time, I would conduct additional user testing with wireframes that implement the new site structure and take previous findings into account. Therefore, I recommend the following directions for future research:
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Further refinement of top-level category structure
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Evaluation of more specific subcategories related to clinical information
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Task testing of new categories and subitems
Retrospective
Identifying and addressing issues with a website interface proposed unique and educational challenges that have improved my UX Research skills.
Key take-aways
User feedback is vital
This project was a valuable exercise in understanding how crucial user input is in the design process. Without user-driven decision making, we build products that are unintuitive and ineffective.
Process-thinking vs. Interface thinking
I learned the importance of thinking beyond the existing interface. It was imperative that I was faithful to the user-centered process to propose changes that were a departure from the existing design.
Changes to my approach
Systematic recruitment of participants
In future studies, I aim to improve the generalizability of my results by implementing a more rigorous and systematic approach to recruitment. Convenience sampling, while quick and easy, does not contribute to a diverse data set.
Modified card sort approach
I would have also started with a hybrid card sort for the first round. I found that performing an open card sort resulted in limited insights due to the highly-specific nature of the site’s content.