Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation: Managing the Cost of IBD
Project Description
The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation partnered with Charity Dynamics to create a new section of its website to provide information and resources on managing the costs associated with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). The Foundation had seen an increase in questions related to managing IBD from a financial perspective, but there wasn’t an existing area on its website that housed this information. In creating the new section, “Managing the Cost of IBD,” site visitors can now search for the information they need and reach out to the Foundation’s staff with any questions. Charity Dynamics also centralized all of the Foundation’s IBD financial content and documents in its content management system to make the section easier to manage and grow.
Project Details
Client Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation
Skills UX Strategy, CMS Searchable Database, Analytics
Challenge
- The Foundation’s website lacked a central hub where site visitors could find information regarding patient financial assistance programs, what IBD patients and supporters need to do when they are denied insurance coverage, and questions around insurance options and programs. Financial content was spread around different portions of the site making it difficult for site visitors to to determine what information was available and where.
- Staff had no easy way to direct site visitors who called about resources on how to find the information they were looking for. Staff had to instruct them to use the search to find information, which quickly overwhelmed their audience.
- The Foundation needed a way for users to easily search and find educational resources, and next steps for patient financial assistance programs.
- The site did not include a way to easily educate the audience on widely used terminology and insurance options.
Approach
- Reviewed all existing content and found missing areas that would help better educate the audience.
- Interviewed the Foundation staff to gather an understanding of what was available; questions were asked about financial assistance and how best to speak to and organize complicated information already contained on the site.
- Helped refine existing content and created a pathway to easily maintain and grow content moving forward.
- Reviewed search tool requirements to understand categories and how content will be organized within the content management system.
- Used Google Analytics and Hotjar to understand website users’ actions.
Outcome
- Charity Dynamics created a new section of content—“Managing the Cost of IBD”—within the “Living with Crohn’s & Colitis” section that houses a new searchable database, within the Blackbaud content management system.
- The database is easily maintained and mapped by staff by using a content wizard that does not require staff to know HTML or any other code.
- Searchable content pages also included tools to easily scroll through large amounts of content.
- By using Google Analytics event tracking to determine the most used and downloaded resources, keywords, and categories, the Foundation can build further content in areas site visitors are truly using.
- In using Hotjar heatmapping, the Foundation can better understand user flows and pathways to information to stay on top of usage of new content and search tools.
- The Foundation can consistently receive feedback by using Hotjar’s feedback survey tool to stay on the pulse of what is working and not working for its audience.