Duke Health’s Ongoing Consumer Website Revitalization

It’s been more than five years since Duke Health relaunched its consumer website (DukeHealth.org), but the redesign process is far from over.

Debbe Geiger, director of content strategy, Duke Health, with Chad Roberts, UX designer, Duke Health

“We planned for our website to evolve into an engaging user experience as we learned more about our audience, who they are, and why they’re coming to our site,” says Debbe Geiger, director of content strategy at Duke Health.

Geiger and her colleague and UX designer Chad Roberts recently explained more about their ongoing website redesign, including the research-driven process Duke Health’s marketing team has taken to improve the site’s user experience.

“Websites are living, evolving, digital creations that need constant nurturing with research, analytics, and feeding of new content,” Geiger says. “Having a constant evaluation process of research and improvement will keep your website current and fresh.”

When the consumer content team first relaunched DukeHealth.org in 2013, they started with an “MVP” or “minimally viable product.” Although this version was far from where the site is today, it was a major upgrade from what existed prior to the relaunch. The MVP had updated branding and design, easier navigation, clearer calls to action (CTAs), and was mobile-friendly — four major features the old website didn’t have.

But to avoid another redesign process in three to five years, Duke Health’s marketing team decided to look at the website as an ongoing improvement project.

“Website redesigns require a lot of time and resources and are a massive undertaking,” Roberts says. “We wanted to be able to avoid a complete redo by constantly evaluating the site section by section and focusing on conversion points we could improve.”

Learn more: Evolving Website Redesign: Duke Health’s Research-Driven Approach

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