Dr. Kaitlyn Furman wanted a website that would help new patients find her at Fusion Chiropractic. Dr. Furman had a website made in 2013. At that time, she had recently graduated from chiro school and was looking to start her own practice. This website has not been maintained and would need basic updates to be usable. As well the security on the previous site has been compromised and the website does not load on mobile devices.
Dr. Furman liked having yellow as her brand colour but in terms of accessibility yellow has its drawbacks. Yellow is a challenging colour to use on a white/light background (yellow would have enough contrast on a black background but I felt that dark mode would be intense for a healthcare professional). Also yellow as a background colour is distracting and poor for readability. Instead proposed moving yellow to gold, a colour associated with high performance. Noting dark gold has sufficient contrast on white at large text sizes.
The fonts used on Dr. Furman's old site were basic and functional but did not necessarily reinforce branding. Selected two elegant geometric sans-serif typefaces. Liked that geometric fonts represent structure, precision, and wholeness. Favoured the modernness of sans⎼serif typefaces as chiropractic care as a practice has expanded to be much more than spinal adjustments.
Dr. Furman generally liked the structure of her old site. So I initially planned on keeping the basic structure but cutting out unnecessary pages and combining pages where appropriate. With this approach, I removed 7 pages (net) by:
Originally was going for a design that really played off Dr. Furman's dancer logo. The intent was to use swirls to create a sense of movement that seemed lighthearted and carefree. The thinking was also to incorporate illustrations to break up the text and present content in an interesting and engaging way.
Unfortunately, the design was not well-received. Dr. Furman thought the design looked unprofessional with the swirls and she felt the illustrations were not anatomically accurate. This was a hard lesson learnt - as it literally meant scrapping the design and starting over. Further, a lot of time went into summarizing and rewriting the content for these 12 pages that had been wireframed. The key takeaway being to be very careful when making assumptions and then designing on those assumptions.
Truthfully, in the beginning I had planned to simplify Dr. Furman's site. But when met with resistance dropped the idea. After the feedback rolled in on the wireframes it got me questioning how sensible it was to be 'essentially updating' her site as opposed to stepping back and taking a more holistic, bigger picture approach. This time when I pitched simplifying the website to Dr. Furman I made a case for a single-page website that would be easier for users to navigate, scan, and learn about chiropractic care. Also the simpler the website the better it would translate to mobile.
Rewrote all the content on Dr. Furman's new site by condensing and summarizing content sourced from her previous 25-page website. The intent was for the content to be informative yet concise and user-friendly.
Choosing stock photos was not an easy process. New image criteria kept being introduced. Going from sports focused (the old site) to family focused to showing people of various genders, ages, races, fitness, body types, and attractiveness. It made sense that the client would want the images to reflect the diversity of the patients she treats. Lesson learnt: Be proactive; ask more questions and confirm the images the client envisions seeing on their website before starting on the image search.
Desktop site - scrollable
Mobile site - scrollable
I was pretty happy with how the website turned out for Dr. Furman - it's simple, engaging, and informative. Chiropractic care, as a practice, is generally misunderstood. A user can quickly scan Dr. Furman's site and have a broad view of therapies she uses and conditions she treats. As an example, I've seen a few people open her site and go, "I didn't know chiropractors can help with pregnancy."
This was my first project for a client and it was quite different to have to work with outside constraints and preferences. Although the design feels like it's mine, it's ultimately the client's. Some things that were out of my control were the client wanted to keep her logo (and have it prominent) and have the CN tower in the header. The imagery was also very important to the client (and nailing down the right images was a process).
A key thing I learnt through this project though was the importance of communication and the danger of making assumptions. There was a couple instances throughout this project where I was redoing work because of a lack of clarify on what the client expectations, preferences, and goals were.
Competitive research
Information architecture
Wireframing
Style guide
Build-out in Wix
Mobile design
Content writing and editing
Image selection and editing
Accessible design
