HonorHealth Medical Focus

HonorHealth Medical Focus

HonorHealth Medical Focus

Five WatchBuddy mockup screens.
Five WatchBuddy mockup screens.

PROJECT OVERVIEW

TL;DR

TL;DR

TL;DR

HonorHealth's 4,000+ physicians and APPs were flying blind.

Despite strong email performance, providers couldn't find information when they actually needed it. Content was scattered, the existing physician site was virtually unknown, and there was no strategy holding any of it together.

I built the communications and UX strategy from the ground up. I defined audience segments, reduced 15 content categories to five, conducted a 335-person survey and 13 interviews, ran a card sort to validate the information architecture, and designed two iterations of a high-fidelity website now in active development.

Role

Lead designer and strategist

Status

In development (Q2 2026 launch)

Tools

Figma, Photoshop, UXtweak, Miro

Impact

Contributed to a Balanced Scorecard (the primary metric used by leadership to track system-wide success) goal, moving engagement scores from 3.8 to 3.95 (approaching the 4.0 target)

The problem

There was no single source of truth.

There was no single source of truth.

There was no single source of truth.

Providers didn't know where to go or how to find what they needed when it mattered.

When physician and APP communications transferred to Marketing, we were starting from zero. The existing site, honorhealthphysicians.com, was an outdated newsletter archive that excluded APPs in its name. Most providers didn't know it existed, and those who did found it unusable.

Despite strong email performance, information was scattered across disconnected platforms: email, SharePoint, Epic, newsletters, and word-of-mouth.

Physicians were reading emails but couldn't "re-find" content when action was required. This was also a business risk: wasted effort creating "disposable" content and the absence of a central directory led to referral leakage.

24%

24%

didn't know where to find information

20%

20%

said info was spread across too many channels

73%

73%

of contracted providers felt out of the loop.

~25%

~25%

of open-ended comments flagged lack of central hub

The question

How might we provide a "single source of truth" that works the way providers actually think, without adding another app or portal to their already overwhelmed workday?

How might we provide a "single source of truth" that works the way providers actually think, without adding another app or portal to their already overwhelmed workday?

Solution

Meet HonorHealth Medical Focus

Meet HonorHealth Medical Focus

Meet HonorHealth Medical Focus

A task-focused site that helps providers find what they need quickly, organized around how providers think, not how the organization is structured. Using a site-within-a-site approach on HonorHealth.com, the experience is fully separated for providers while still leveraging the parent site infrastructure.

Navigation that actually works

Navigation that actually works

Top nav with Articles, Events, Resources, Join HonorHealth, and Contact Us. A distinct Refer a Patient item with a functional dropdown.

15 legacy categories replaced with five below the hero for quick discovery.

Site-within-a-site framework

Decoupled UI on HonorHealth.com that fully separates provider content from the public site.

Cloaked navigation removes parent headers and footers once providers enter Medical Focus.

Accessibility and scannability

Fixed heading issues that previously discouraged H2/H3 use and alt text.

WCAG Level AAA compliant.

Read Time tags and a grid-based visual hierarchy to reduce cognitive load.

A digital board grouping user research into three themes: content availability, watchlist organization, and social discovery features.

HOW I GOT THERE

No budget, no structure… so I started with guerrilla UX

No budget, no structure… so I started with guerrilla UX

Before formal research was approved, I built strategy using observation and existing data: shadowing providers, auditing all communication channels, analyzing engagement data, and partnering with Medical Staff Services and Physician Relations to understand audience segments by credentialing status and employment model.

This early work surfaced something huge: the problem wasn't volume, it was organization.

Providers could read information, but couldn't reliably re-find it when they needed it.

01

Guerrilla research and content audit

Guerrilla research and content audit

Shadowed providers, pulled engagement data, and audited all channels. Defined audience segments and built an initial content taxonomy before formal approval.

02

Iteration 1:
Archive to tool

Iteration 1: Archive to tool

Replaced the brochure-style layout with a task-based structure. Reduced 15 legacy categories to five content pillars aligned with provider needs.

Executive leadership responded enthusiastically, unlocking formal research.

Original site

Original site

  • Led with a massive, non-functional hero image

  • Actionable content buried below the fold and hidden in blog articles

  • Navigation reflected internal structure, not provider mental models

  • 15 content categories that didn't align with content pillars

  • No audience segmentation, no path for external providers

Comparison of the "Discover" screen showing a more compact layout and smaller platform icons.

What iteration 1 changed

What iteration 1 changed

  • Task-based structure with five content pillar categories

  • Featured section to give users a clear starting point

  • Multi-column grid to cut scroll fatigue

  • High-quality photography for a human-centric feel

  • Events and Resources with dedicated pages

03

Formal research:
335 survey responses + 13 interviews

Formal research: 335 survey responses + 13 interviews

Designed and ran a full quantitative and qualitative study with credentialed physicians and APPs across HonorHealth.

Insight #1: The re-finding gap

Email is the dominant and preferred channel. 68% of providers use it, 71% prefer it. But 60% read less than half of what they receive, and 30% report never receiving information at all.

Design implication: Content needs to be discoverable on demand, not just in the moment it's sent.

Insight #2: Communication overload was real… but a targeting problem

Providers described feeling "inundated" and "bombarded." But only 18% of employed physicians said they received too much communication, compared to 9% of contracted providers.

Design implication: The problem was relevance, not volume. Better targeting, not less content.

Insight #3: The contracted provider blind spot

73% of contracted providers said they felt out of the loop. Our channel audit confirmed why: most communications only reached credentialed providers. Contracted groups like ER physicians, hospitalists, and anesthesiologists had few reliable touchpoints beyond email.

Design implication: The site needed to serve contracted providers, not just employed staff.

Insight #4: Providers want a hub, not another app

Both the survey and interviews confirmed providers want a centralized place for information.

Design implication: They do not want another portal, another app, another thing to check. The solution had to live somewhere they could actually find.

04

Card sort to validate the IA

Card sort to validate the IA

Before the second iteration, I ran a closed card sort to test the proposed site structure from iteration one.

The structure aligned strongly with provider mental models so no major IA overhaul was needed. Key adjustments: Join HonorHealth and Contact Us moved to top navigation. Refer a Patient became a primary top-level item with a dropdown for all referral pathways.

The IA we landed on

05

Iteration 2:
Site-within-a-site

Iteration 2: Site-within-a-site

Strategic pivot to a decoupled UI on HonorHealth.com. Raised concerns around content overlap, search visibility, and experience integrity, which directly shaped the final solution. Now in design and preparing for development handoff (Q2 launch).

Top nav – CTA item closed

A digital board grouping user research into three themes: content availability, watchlist organization, and social discovery features.
A digital board grouping user research into three themes: content availability, watchlist organization, and social discovery features.

Top nav – CTA item open

A digital board grouping user research into three themes: content availability, watchlist organization, and social discovery features.
A digital board grouping user research into three themes: content availability, watchlist organization, and social discovery features.

CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS

What made this hard

What made this hard

What made this hard

Building without a budget or formal approval

I used shadowing, observation, channel audits, and existing engagement data to build strategy before research approval. Intuition built from domain expertise scaffolded the formal research later.

Navigating a strategic pivot mid-project

The shift to a site-within-a-site approach was significant, and it was initially unclear what my role would be in shaping the new direction. I raised concerns around patient/provider content overlap, search visibility, and overall experience integrity — which helped shape the final solution. The design adapted, but the core research held.

Designing for a hard-to-access audience

Physicians are busy. I leveraged hallway conversations, post-meeting moments, feedback from the providers I write articles with, and engagement metrics from every direct email. Over 12 months, that built a deep understanding that complemented formal research.

Building without a budget or formal approval

I used shadowing, observation, channel audits, and existing engagement data to build strategy before research approval. Intuition built from domain expertise scaffolded the formal research later.

Navigating a strategic pivot mid-project

The shift to a site-within-a-site approach was significant, and it was initially unclear what my role would be in shaping the new direction. I raised concerns around patient/provider content overlap, search visibility, and overall experience integrity — which helped shape the final solution. The design adapted, but the core research held.

Designing for a hard-to-access audience

Physicians are busy. I leveraged hallway conversations, post-meeting moments, feedback from the providers I write articles with, and engagement metrics from every direct email. Over 12 months, that built a deep understanding that complemented formal research.

IMPACT

The engagement score tells the story

The engagement score tells the story

The engagement score tells the story

When I started, interdepartmental communication scored 3.8 on the Press Ganey engagement survey. By the end of 2025 — after reducing 15 content categories to five, applying them consistently across all channels, and improving accessibility and readability — the score increased to 3.95. That shift isn't a coincidence. And the site hadn't even launched yet.

Post launch metrics will track:

Task success rate: Can providers complete key actions like referring a patient or finding CME?

Time-to-find: Target under 2 minutes for critical tasks

Return usage: Are providers coming back to re-find information?

Referral pathway usage: Increased use of in-network referral tools and program directory

When I started, interdepartmental communication scored 3.8 on the Press Ganey engagement survey. Late 2024 through 2025, I reduced 15 content categories down to five, applied them consistently across all channels, made content more targeted and role-relevant, and improved accessibility and readability. By the end of 2025, the score increased to 3.95. That shift isn't a coincidence.

And the site hadn't even launched yet.

Post launch metrics will track:

  • Task success rate: Can providers complete key actions like referring a patient or finding CME?

  • Time-to-find: Target under 2 minutes for critical tasks

  • Return usage: Are providers coming back to re-find information?

  • Referral pathway usage: Increased use of in-network referral tools and program directory

What this taught me

Strategy and design are the same job

Strategy and design are the same job

Strategy and design are the same job

This started as a communications strategy problem and became a UX problem. The best decisions I made treated them as inseparable.

Data can validate intuition — but intuition can scaffold data. I built for nearly a year without formal research approval. When the data came in, it confirmed what I'd learned from listening. The lesson isn't to skip research. It's that good observation, done consistently, gets you somewhere real.

Constraints create better design. The site-within-a-site pivot felt limiting at first. It ended up producing a more scalable, trust-backed architecture than a standalone URL would have.

Advocating for your work is part of the work. I raised concerns when direction shifted. I documented them. I kept building. That combination of candor and execution is what kept the project moving forward.

Don't wait for permission to start well. No budget, no formal structure. Guerrilla UX built the foundation that formal research later validated and extended.

This started as a communications strategy problem and became a UX problem. The best decisions I made treated them as inseparable.

Data can validate intuition — but intuition can scaffold data. I built for nearly a year without formal research approval. When the data came in, it confirmed what I'd learned from listening. The lesson isn't to skip research. It's that good observation, done consistently, gets you somewhere real.

Constraints create better design. The site-within-a-site pivot felt limiting at first. It ended up producing a more scalable, trust-backed architecture than a standalone URL would have.

Advocating for your work is part of the work. I raised concerns when direction shifted. I documented them. I kept building. That combination of candor and execution is what kept the project moving forward.

Don't wait for permission to start well. No budget, no formal structure. Guerrilla UX built the foundation that formal research later validated and extended.