Many people seeking therapy face significant challenges in finding a therapist who meets their needs. Common pain points include difficulties finding someone with availability, confusion over insurance compatibility, and a lack of ease, confidence, and information during the search process.
Patti Cain enlisted my help to create a logo and website for her practice, Cain Connections & Recovery, that showcased her personality, invoked warmth and comfort, and provided relevant information clearly and concisely.
The goal of creating a user-friendly website felt crucial for this project, given the intimidating nature of searching for a therapist for individuals in a vulnerable state. By creating a responsive website that is visually appealing and easy to navigate, users can seamlessly find the information they need and feel confident in their choice of therapist.
The research methods for this project included a competitive analysis of five other therapist services, a stakeholder interview with Patti Cain (owner of CC&R), an online survey with 23 participants, and user interviews with five participants.
I ran a competitive analysis to gain valuable insights into industry norms and language. Through discussing other therapist websites with Patti, I was also able to identify elements of her preferred style.
I also held a stakeholder interview with Patti to better understand her goals, wants, and needs.
I discovered that Patti is looking for a website that reflects her personality & her practice: strong, structured, and professional, yet comforting, uplifting, and easy-going. And since her primary focus is on connection, she wanted that to be evident in the messaging.
I conducted an online survey in order to gain insights into how people find therapists and what factors are essential in their selection process.
I discovered that the majority of people use Google, followed by their insurance carrier, to find a therapist. Personal compatibility was the most important factor in users' searches by far. Besides that, users were interested in knowing about insurance compatibility, rates, personal information, experience, and certifications.
Nearly 96% of respondents rated overall feel and personal compatibility as extremely important when finding a therapist.
The user interviews provided in-depth answers on users' preferences when researching therapists.
Their preferences included the importance of immediate availability and the need for a comfortable and easy method of reaching out to a therapist. Specialties, qualifications, background, personality, and experience also influenced their decision-making.
Four out of five participants expressed frustration about not knowing a therapist's availability or lack thereof.
Overall, these research methods were instrumental in guiding the development of the website to meet Patti's goals and the needs of potential clients.
Empathy is at the core of both UX design and therapy practices. Therefore I wanted to ensure that I gave special attention to methodologies that highlight compassion.
Developing a fully formed persona felt necessary in this project, so I could have a specific lens to look through when making certain decisions.
A clearly defined problem statement is also helpful to fall back on during the decision-making process. For this project, the problem statement was defined as:
People seeking therapy often experience difficulties and frustrations during the process of finding a therapist, such as discovering that the therapist they like is not accepting new clients or facing confusion around insurance compatibility. These pain points contribute to the already challenging emotional state of the users. Therefore, there is a need for a user-friendly and empathetic solution that provides ease, confidence, and relevant information during the therapist search process.
To further understand the user's experience, I created a storyboard to visualize a scenario that the persona might encounter. This exercise helped me analyze the flow and organization of the product, but I also found it to be a highly empathetic practice.
Several research methods were employed to create an effective website structure and user flow.
I conducted an open, virtual card sort with 10 participants to understand how users naturally organize information. This exercise helped create a site map that incorporated Patti's preferences, user feedback, industry norms, and the card sort results.
Additionally, I developed a task flow to demonstrate a specific user path in achieving their goals on the website.
Sketches and lo-fidelity wireframes gave me a first-hand look into how the layout and responsiveness could behave.
Patti initially reached out for help creating a logo for her practice, Cain Connections and Recovery. I developed a few options for logos, photo styles, color themes, and typography and had her provide feedback on preferences.
To assess the ease and frustrations users experience, I conducted a moderated usability test with 5 participants who worked through various tasks on my high-fidelity prototype.
Positive feedback included the website's simplicity, straightforwardness, logo, photos, and overall feel.
The main issues highlighted by the participants were:
Based on the usability test and feedback, I made the following priority revisions:
In addition to the priority revisions, I also made other revisions, including:
In a lot of ways, this project centered around trust. The stakeholder trusted me to design a logo and website for her. My interview participants trusted me enough to be vulnerable when discussing their experience with finding a therapist. And I trusted the process of design thinking as well as my own design instincts as I worked to find the best solutions for the project goal.
I am still working with Patti to continue to work on her website (improving upon the content, specifically), but her site is up and running (you may view it here) and, as of the time of writing, she is completely booked up — clearly stated on her website, of course.
Click to view the desktop prototype, tablet prototype, and mobile prototype on Figma.