Connecting patients with practitioners

The website attracts 1 million active users every month to choose from over 11,000 practitioners across Australia.

The goal of the website is primarily to help patients search for and book a practitioner. They can also create profiles, save personal medical information, save favourites and view upcoming and previous bookings.

A profile page is a practice’s and practitioner’s online front of house, receptionist, marketing manager and booking agent all in one. It needs to communicate everything important a patient needs to know about the business and its services in a succinct, structured way, before allowing them an easy way to book.

Hierarchy of easily digestible content and quick booking was important.

Fitting a large amount of content onto a small screen was a challenge. It was necessary to employ careful use of font weight, size, spacing and a modest use of colour to retain visual hierarchy and usability. Analytics showed us that easily booking an appointment from the screen was very important.

Allowing space for large practice images was a great way for profiles to stand out. By reviewing hundreds of supplied clinic and practitioner images from practices I was able to calculate the best height to width ratio for the image frame on profile pages and result page cards.

The desktop version of profile pages allowed us to show both practice and practitioner information and the booking card at all times as the page was scrolled. The book appointment section anchors to the top along with section tabs making quick navigation and appointment time selection easy.

Over 600,000 patients view a search results page on the site each month alone. So, allowing patients to easily search for a practitioner or practice with specific variables, then viewing relevant options in their location at the right time of day is critical to HealthEngine’s success.

The home screen design presented a big challenge to present the right filterable search categories in the right order with the right visual balance. As we needed to cater for a large number of variables, it was important to present auto-complete content from a dropdown free-text field in an easy to use manner.

The results page went through a series of A/B tests to inform hierarchy of search filter and results card content. A lot of information needed to be structured for easy navigation and interaction. Result cards needed to present just enough information for patients to make an informed decision before booking.