Ryan Ranch Physical Therapy
Website Design & Development
Ryan Ranch Physical Therapy of Monterey is a group of experienced health care professionals dedicated to providing the highest quality of care to their patients. Their physical therapists are back by years of experience and want to provide patients with the greatest potential for recovery from their injury or condition. In addition to addressing their physical therapy needs, they also implement preventative care strategies to ensure a full recovery and prevention of injury or condition reoccurrence.
Project Overview
Client’s current site is outdated and is not efficiently organized. The physical therapy community in Monterey doesn’t have accessible resources for physical health help and exercises to focus on. The client needs a renovated website to advertise their services and to be a resource for their community.
PROBLEM
Properly market company and their services with marketing materials such as a professional logo and effective website. Making the website accessible for all users, mobile friendly, and interactive in order for visitors to stay engaged and learn more about the company. Tools are directed towards those in need of physical therapy, physical therapists, and the general public.
SOLUTION
TOOLS
Branding & Logo Options
The client wanted a refresh of their branding but keeping the main colors from their previous logo. It was important that the logo represented the purpose of the company, physical therapy.
Design Process
01 Emphathize
OVERVIEW
Method: moderated one-on-one interviews
Participants: 6
Age Range: 22-30
All fit criteria for physical therapy patients and general local community
LEADING QUESTIONS
Where do you find resources for physical injury prevention?
How often do you practice stretches and how important is it to you?
Have you used physical therapy? If so, how long?
Do you know the typical services that a physical therapy practice provides?
Are you able to find what you need on the current website?
What improvements would you like to see on the website?
User Interviews
Once the user interviews were finished, I reviewed the summaries from each user in order to create user personas. This would help me get a better understanding of the main needs and pain points that users come across.
Personas
From reviewing the complete user personas, I was able to create a site map for the general structure. It became easier to understand which pages users will want to visit quickly.
02 Define
After creating the site map, I sketched out how the main pages, Home, About, Services, Resources, and Contact, will be laid out and its main components. I then moved on to create a lo-fi wireframe.
03 Ideate
Sketches
Wireframe
04 Prototype & Test
OVERVIEW
Method: moderated one-on-one interviews
Participants: 6
Age Range: 22-30
LEADING QUESTIONS
How long does it take a user to find exercises for injury prevention?
Does the user know what the website is about from viewing the initial home page?
How long does the user take to find the services the practice provides?
Where does the user go to contact the physical therapy company?
Is there anything that the new website is missing?
Usability Testing
Insights
Some users found it hard to read the text on each page. Since the imagery in the background had many bold colors, it was hard for users to see the contrast in the text.
I created opaque backgrounds in order for users to view the text easier, as well as increasing the text size to make it more visible. I also blurred the images so that the hard edges are not clashing with the text.
Users found it difficult to differentiate the types of exercises on the Resources page. They also didn’t realize at first that the thumbnails were videos to view.
I reorganized the categories of the types of exercises so that users are able to find what they need quickly. I created new thumbnails with ‘play’ buttons so users know that they are clickable.
Style Guide
The images used on the background of the renovated website pages are from the rooms of the physical therapy practice. The reason I chose to do this is to create the concept of the user being immersed into the site so that it feels like you are there in the building. The staff pictured also make you feel welcome.
Interactive Prototype
Interactive Mobile Prototype
Takeaways
A challenge that I faced with the production of this website was that the client didn’t provide the website content in the time needed in order for all of the other processes to work out as scheduled. I was able to learn how to use placeholders in place of where content would go for testing.
I also learned browser testing on different platforms, such as Firefox, Chrome, Explorer, and Safari which lead to a few minor changes within the images and typography.
I was able to learn more about user testing & user personas and how collecting information affects the design of the website. Practicing these skills has made me more confident in the process of user data and testing.