Oakwood Healthcare Goes Responsive in Website Redesign: Enhancing the User Experience

by Mary Zatina

Communications industry estimates indicate that some­time this year we will pass a tipping point from which there is no going back. That is, more people will access the Internet with mobile devices such as smart­phones and tablets than with desk­top computers. And many of them will be searching for healthcare information and contacting hospitals for services. Desktops likely won’t fade away for a while, so the trick becomes managing Web content so that users will have a satisfying experience no matter what type of device they use to access it.

Traditionally, that has meant a healthcare organization had to main­tain two or more websites: a full ver­sion for desktops and a smaller, stripped-down version for mobile devices. Management of the sites meant duplicate sets of content, at least two designs, and often separate URLs. More work, more personnel, more time, and more expense.

Oakwood Healthcare, a 1,200-bed, four-hospital health system, needed to accommodate mobile users. In any case, the Dearborn, MI-based system would have to redesign its extensive website, which incorpo­rated more than 30 other sites. Oakwood’s website information architecture had been developed such that major content sections were separate “sites” with their own content structures.

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