Today we are going to talk user experience. That may seem like a scary, large concept but you’ll come to find it’s simple when you know a few rules. So what is user experience? This is your patients, utilizing your website and how they feel about it. Is your website easy to use, is it simple, is it relevant, do they get the information that they need? That is all important in user experience. Ever go to a website of a product you are thinking about purchasing and found the layout off putting? Or maybe you couldn’t even find a way to buy the product? This is the user experience and here are a few tips to help you get your website right.
You want to make sure that your website design is simple and easy to use. There’s the old adage: K.I.S.S.. Keep It Simple Stupid. Less is more. You do not want information about every single drug in the entire world on your website. You want to have the most relevant information available. Why do people come to your website? They want to know your phone number, they want to know your fax number, they want to know your address, they want to refill their prescriptions. Make that information prominent and easy to find. If I have to go clicking through five pages to find a contact form, I’m probably going to give up and go to the competitor. Want to know where the real genius in Apple lies? It’s in their simplicity. A simple operating system, an easy to use phone. Simplicity is key.
Next, make sure your website loads quickly. Everyone in this world today is so impatient. If you don’t have the fastest speed on your phone, you get sensitive. Don’t be having pop ups and other things that interfere with loading. Make sure that your website is loading quickly. If it takes three minutes to load your “about us” page, then I am going to move on. If there’s a video that has to load to see anything, and my internet is going slow, I’ll find a faster and more responsive website.
The next tip is about responsive design. Everyone is now looking at websites on their smart device. Make sure that your website looks beautiful on a phone, on a computer, on a tablet, you want to make sure that your website responds to the screen that it is being viewed on. More and more traffic is coming from mobile devices. Everyone and their grandmother have a tablet. As the portability of computers go up, then it’s the smart thing to cater to this crowd. You want to make sure that your website is easy and simple to navigate from a smart device. If you’re not, then you’re losing out on the largest crowd: the casual user.
Our last tip is going to be about bullet points and call to action. You want to have nice, simple, easy bullet points. Do not have more than 6, people are not going to sit there and read through 10,000 bullet points. Have 6 bullet points of the most important information and have a call to action. Make this information simple and straight to the point. This is supposed to be the important bits and people will recognize if is. In most cases, for a retail pharmacy, their most important function of their website is going to be their “refill your prescription online”. Make sure that call to action is easy to see, easy to find and very simple to use. A simple RX bottle that you can click is usually good enough. Refilling prescriptions online will become bigger as the years go on, so be prepared!
Wrapping everything up, you need to remember that your website is for your patients, not for you. They are the people actually utilizing it. You do not want to make it for yourself, you want to make it for them. Make it so simple, that a drunk guy could use it! And that’s not just a joke, but an actual thing! Head to theuserisdrunk.com and watch some of his funny reviews. While silly, they are an excellent example of the user experience in motion. Remember, the user experience is king!
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