How to Design a Medical Website That Works

Posted by Elizabeth Swartz & Peter McEllhenney on 11 August 2011 | 2 Comments

Tags: Medical Website Design

Good web design enhances the image of doctors and other health professionals on the internet. It also affects whether a patient decides to stay on your site or leave it.

Here are 6 simple principles for how to design a medical website. They will also help you get the best site for your medical, dental, or surgical practice when you work with a web designer.

 

Pick 1 Message and 1 Emotion

Health care is a complex profession, but advertising is about simple ideas. So choose one message that defines who you are, what you do, and what emotion your patients should feel when they think of you.

For example …

• Are you a primary-care physician who offers warm personal care?
• Or a highly skilled surgeon who patients can trust to get outstanding results?
• Or a cosmetic dentist who helps people feel good by making them look better?

Find the message and emotion that fits you, then use it to guide your website design.

 

Keep the Logo Simple

Your logo should be bold and uncomplicated. It should express an essence of who you are, but not tell your entire story. It should have one image, if it has an image, and should have as few words as possible. Finally, it should express the emotion you chose.

This logo we recently designed is a good example:

Good medical practice logo design is especially important if you plan to use it in many places. A logo that looks good on a large computer screen may be hard to see when it’s viewed on a smartphone or a business card. Keeping it simple keeps it readable.

 

Choose Web Page Focal Points with Care

A web page with 20 design elements all the same size will confuse visitors because they won’t know where to look first. When web visitors are confused by a page, they leave it.

Choose three design elements you want visitors to see and the order in which you want visitors to see them.

 

 

For example, on this design, we wanted visitors to see the logo first, the photograph of the Dr. Hart second, and the phone number third. Dr. Hart earns 25 new patients a week with the help of her website.

 

Choose Photographs with Even More Care

Designing a health practice website around photographs can be effective if the photographs are good.

A good photo of yourself can create a positive emotional connection with patients visiting your website. You want a professional photographer to take this photograph.

Using photographs or images that illustrate the health care you provide can also be effective. Work with a designer who has a good eye to choose these photos. Images that show real people in real-life situations are far more persuasive than stock-art photographs of models in white coats.

 

Use Colors to Express Emotion

Color is an excellent way to express emotions in a manner that is subtle but highly effective. So choose colors for your website that express the emotion you selected at the beginning of the design process.

For example…

• A primary care physician could choose from a palette of warm natural colors to suggest the warmth of the patient-physician relationship.
• A surgeon might select slightly cooler colors to suggest skill and technical precision, particular if she uses highly sophisticated techniques.
• A dentist will almost certainly want to use clean colors in his web design with an emphasis on white.

If you also like the colors that fit the emotion of your medical website – great! – but don’t let your personal favorites drive your choices.

 

Limit Copy to 250 to 300 Words per Page

The words on the page are part of the website design as well. So don’t overwhelm patients with dense paragraphs of text that scroll on and on.

Research has shown that 250 to 300 words per web page is the ideal length for human readers. When you have a large amount of complicated information to communicate, break down the topics into sections that can fit onto a series of single pages.

 

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