AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION
Complete Website Redesign
TLDR— As a Creative Director, I led the efforts to re-envision AHA’s web experience. My goal was to create an experience that delivered a deep and personalized experience using context marketing and dynamic components. After a complete UX/IA overhaul, I streamlined their entire experience and created a suite of dynamic components that scaled for a wide variety of use cases. The new site is live and more than doubled AHA’s engagement metrics along with providing new ways to reach and interact with their audience.
Registrations increased 3x / Engagement increased by 110% / NPS Score of 8.2
Sitemap for new site solution.
My Approach
Equipped with a great team of talent, we aimed to provide a fresh and modern web experience that flexed the power of Sitecore’s context marketing capabilities. My team conducted numerous on-site working sessions to discuss the UX and content strategy. From there we built a game plan on how to approach the team’s goals from a UX design perspective.
Outcome
Working in close collaboration with key stakeholders, we delivered a powerful and flexible solution for our AHA. Sitecore personalization rules and progressive profiling via ‘snack-able’ components provided a truly unique experience for each visitor.
My Contribution
Creative Direction
UX Strategy + Information Architecture
Content Strategy
Context Marketing and Personalization
From left to right: Recipes Landing Page, Editorial Page, Encyclopedia
Diagram illustrating the relationship of a user’s actions and context marketing.
Personalization / Context Marketing
We approached this redesign with the goal to offer a more personalized experience to the user. Utilizing Sitecore’s personalization rules and smart components, we created ‘snack-sized’ interactions for users to input information that the CMS can use to tailor the overall experience.
We accomplished this by creating personalization rules based on the client’s requirements. Then we applied tags to pieces of content and ranked them for the CMS to weigh. From there, we strategically placed these ‘snack-sized’ components to engage with the users and gain more meaningful information.
Not only can the page layout be drastically different by serving personalized and relevant content, but the CMS can also leverage marketing tools based on this attained information.
The ‘Magic Module’, the hardest working component around
Building for Extensibility
I’m a big proponent for component-based design. Approaching a solution as layouts comprising of component types have lead to more efficient and extensible results. We approached this by creating a suite of diverse components that can be applied to any content type.
My team worked closely with stakeholders from the various business units to identify their unique needs so we can architect the right approach. Among the numerous component types, the most popular and flexible component we leveraged is what I call the ‘magic module’. This component generally consists of 6 parts:
Main Image
Title
Description
Button / Link
Additional Metadata (optional)
Background Image / Color
This ‘magic module’ can be customized to hide or show each of the above to customize a section as needed. Grid layout can be specified as per content needs.
This component is an example of how extensibility can be approached from a component level.
The Takeaway
Aside from the emphasis on personalization and context marketing, taking on a project of this size from a content perspective was a challenge. Migration was a huge undertaking that needed all hands on deck. Communication, attainable milestones, and clear goals are KEY.
Things to note:
Accessibility is #1. ALL projects on the web should consider reaching everyone.
Stay on top of that content audit document & gap analysis
Loop in content creators/editors early so they can plan accordingly
Media selection cannot be pushed off for later -- this becomes a monster when nearing the finish line.
Remain diligent on maintaining the UI kit & component sheet
When collaborating with other vendors/agencies, consider their contribution and how it can alter your expected results -- aim for the best possible result.