How I helped design the most accessible GP practice website in the UK
The problem
If you’ve ever been on a GP practice’s website, you might know they’re a mixed bag.
Not centrally managed by NHS Digital, GPs can design and write their own sites. This is great for allowing GPs to tailor the information to their local area and patients.
But the downside is that sometimes these sites are:
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inaccessible
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not rooted in patient needs
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difficult to read and navigate
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not integrated with central NHS services
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full of pictures of cats
Here’s one example of the problem:
Goal 🎯
We were asked to design, write and build a website that could be used by GP practices all over the UK.
The website needed to:
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be accessible and easy to understand for everyone
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help GPs to manage demand and become more efficient
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make it easy for patients to find what they need
Discovery
Desk research
Not wanting to repeat work that had already been done, we waded our way through NHS research into GP practices, including data on the most common admin tasks and routine patient requests.
Interviews
To better understand what GP practices need from their website, and to learn more about their day-to-day work and problems, we interviewed practice staff from across the UK, including GPs, receptionists and practice managers.
Surveys
To learn more about patients’ experience and needs, we surveryed 100s of patients all over the UK. We did this both through GP's patient feedback groups and recruiting our own participants through a research platform, UserZoom.
Data analysis
Looking at GP practices’ web analytics gave us an insight into the most popular pages. What were patients most interested in? How did this align with the information that GPs thought was important?
Laying the groundwork with a design system and content style guide
Our first priority was to bring the websites in line with the NHS design system and content style guide.
Our research had told us that some of the big problems could be solved by clear language and consistent, accessible design.
Before
After
Beyond simplifying the design...
Going beyond fixing the obvious design and content issues, here are 3 examples of specific usability problems we tackled.
Problem 1: Giving users too many ways to do the same thing
One of the big problems we found in our research was that patients felt confused by all of the options presented to them.
This was one of the big barriers to patients using online services for everyday requests.
Out of confusion and frustration, patients would often just call the practice to make sure.
Before
😖
Imagine you're feeling unwell and want to quickly get your prescription.
Would you want to wade through all this information?
It seems that most patients just decided to call the practice instead.
Solution
✅
Give the user one clear route forward to get what they need
UX principle:
Hick's Law
"The more choices you present someone with, the longer it will take them to reach a decision."
'Hick’s Law: Making choice easier for users', Interaction-Design.org
Problem 2: The IA was not rooted in patient needs
Our research found that the vast majority of patients wanted to do one of the same 5 or 6 common tasks on their GP's website.
But these core patient needs were getting lost behind a wall of dense information, updates, and local news.
Before
😖
Inspection results, meeting minutes, policies – it's great that GPs are transparent.
But is this really what most people need from their GPs website?
Does information like this belong in a prominent position on the home page?
Solution: A structure that prioritises the core needs
✅
An IA that's rooted in core patient needs. Verb first labels.
UX principle:
Good services are verbs
"To a user, a service is simple. It’s something that helps them to do something"
'Design in Government', GOV.UK
Problem 3: Patients often don't know about other local services
Our research found that patients had a fuzzy understanding of what their GP could help with.
Sometimes patients would wait weeks for a GP appointment only to be told that they couldn't get physiotherapy at the practice, for example.
GPs were consistently wasting time redirecting patients to other local NHS services.
Solution: Signposting tool
Normally, I'd wrack my brain to remove as much friction as possible for the user.
But on this occasion, our research showed that it was in patients' interests to slow down and check if seeing a GP was their best option.
In many cases, there were local services that could help with their health issue far quicker. So rather than just taking them to a booking page, we introduced a few more steps to ask what they really needed to try to direct them to the best service.
✅
More steps, bit more friction, but better for everyone to direct the patient to the right service.
UX principle:
Tesler's Law
"If you simplify too much, you'll transfer some complexity to the users"
'Psychology of Design', Growth.Design
Business outcome
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Independent NHS research found that our site was the best performing and most accessible site they tested. 9/10 patients with low and moderate digital skills found what they were looking for in task-based usability tests.
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Our website is now used 50+ GP practice across the UK. We expect this to be 1000+ by January 2023.
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We’ve helped GP practice become more efficient. One practice reported a 30% increase in the use of their digital repeat prescription service.
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We’ve helped patients all over the UK find what they were looking for without having to call their GP practice.