Medical Website Design: A Step-by-Step Guide
- Updated on 12 Jan 2024
- 11 min
Polina Hrudieva
UX/UI expert
Creating a medical website? This guide breaks down everything you need to know.
Whether you’re a startup founder or simply looking to build trust with potential patients, you’ll learn:
- Estimated costs to design your medical site
- Key elements that set healthcare sites apart
- A step-by-step process for crafting an effective user experience
We’ll start by looking at what impacts the budget for building a reliable medical website. Complexity, design choices, staffing, and location all contribute to the overall investment.
Next, we’ll explore the must-have features that distinguish health service sites. Clear navigation, accessibility, and trust-building design can attract and retain visitors.
Finally, we’ll walk through how to strategically develop the user flow, wireframes, and visual identity.
Let’s get started!
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How Much Does It Cost to Design a Medical Website?
A good medical web design requires strategic planning and has several stages. It must be secure, functional, and have a high usability score. To create such a robust MVP, you may have to shell out a good sum of money.
However, it may vary depending on the website features and the technology used. Besides the time taken to design a website, the designer’s cost, and the geographical location also affect the cost.
1. Cost Varies by Complexity
The complexity involved in a healthcare website design is one of the deciding factors in the pricing of designing a medical practice website.
Fewer features, fewer functionalities imply less time, fewer resources, and hence less cost.
Let’s compare the cost of an average medical website depending on its type.
| Type | Average cost, $ |
| Healthcare landing or homepage | 3,000 |
| Medical corporate website | 10,000 |
| Basic medical web app | 12,000 |
| Average medical web app | 18,000 |
| Complex medical web app | 24,000 |
When you determine the type of medical website, look for the types of design and their impact on website cost.
2. Cost Varies by Design Type
There are many options of templates and libraries that you can choose for your healthcare design. They cost less than customized solutions but can’t guarantee a unique and sophisticated design.
If you are a significant medical platform business serving hundreds of new patients in the medical industry, you need a customized website, and it would be priced accordingly.
Let’s see the average price for the different types of design. For the calculation, we use the basic healthcare web application.
| Type | Average cost, $ |
| Template-based | 2,500 |
| With the use of libraries | 8,000 |
| Custom | 12,000 |
After selecting the type of design, you need to calculate the costs for the chosen team.
3. Cost Depends on the Team
Depending on the type of your healthcare website design, you can choose different team options. Usually, the design of an average medical product requires a team of a few web designers.
Compare the prices for hiring an in-house team based in the USA or an outsourcing agency in Eastern Europe. For the calculation, we use the same example.
| Type | Average cost, $ |
| In-house | 30,000 |
| Local development team | 40,000 |
| Freelancers | 6000 |
| Outsourcing agency | 12,000 |
The choice of the type of team is significantly connected with its location.
4. Cost Varies by Location
The design team’s location – their country or zone will also determine the last price of the website, especially if you decide to outsource web design work. In addition, the number of people involved in the process is also an essential factor.
For calculation, we’ll use the same example, as above.
| Location | Average cost, $ |
| Australia | 30,000 |
| The US | 40,000 |
| The UK | 35,000 |
| Western Europe | 26,000 |
| Eastern Europe | 12,000 |
| South Asia | 6,000 |
After knowing the rates in different countries, complexity, team, and type of design, you may pick your preference and find the website development healthcare provider that will make your healthcare web design unique.
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What Makes Medical Website Design Different?
There are specific characteristics that differentiate a medical website from other websites. We have listed some of the most vital ones needed to make a unique stature in the market.
1. Clear Navigation is Critical
Suppose there are two websites – A and B. Website A helps the users find theirs preferred choice in three simple steps. Whereas website B takes too long to open up, makes the users go through a series of questions, and above all, navigation is confusing.
Which one do you think will be a hit among the users? Clearly, website A.
This brain exercise suggests that simple navigation rules supreme when it comes to engaging a customer. Therefore, create intuitive navigation with an organizational structure that guides a user skillfully.
Take a look at Greensborough Road Surgery. The minimal approach in the medical best website design with easy and quick navigation makes the users happy and satisfied.
The table below is an insight into the two most essential elements of navigation besides others.
| Feature | Description |
| Well-designed menu |
|
| Clear CTAs | Place CTAs throughout the webpage taking users to the most important pages such as the online booking system, patient education portal, and more. For example, Heritage Hospice offers smooth navigation features. The medical website design has clear CTAs that direct users to key pages. |
Another important aspect is the advanced accessibility of the website.
2. Enhanced Accessibility is Essential
A medical website in r demand of people with different health conditions like:
- Old Age
- Auditory and visual abilities
- Psychological and physical characteristics
With the customer base mentioned above, it is vital to include elements in your medical website design that make it accessible for all and work seamlessly. Also, check if there is a hindrance to any user.
For instance, individuals with motion sickness may not find animation comforting. But this does not imply you should use only two colors.
The design suggestion indicates an added responsibility for the designer. The color blindness simulator is helpful in this regard.
Now, check out the table below. It has a few tips to achieve advanced accessibility.
| What to Do? | Why do It? |
| High contrast ratios | Improves visibility |
| Subtle colors | Heavy colors may drive away color blind people |
| Responsive design | Adapts to all screen sizes and types |
| Consistent navigation | Easy to use |
When you have made sure your website has straightforward navigation and easy access, it’s time to check whether it has a trust-inspiring design.
3. Design Must Inspire Trust
Needless to say, people invest their trust in medical websites with their health and well-being. If your design is poor, no one will believe you and your services.
If you use a template and your website looks like many others, consider it a doom. Henceforth, pay attention to your logo and brand name. It should be unique and catchy.
Take, for example, Mod Health. It is a modern healthcare company with a simple logo, but the color choice and design are intelligent. While the green color denotes professionalism, trust, and power, the gray color accentuates the blue.
Do not leave any loopholes in your copy, coding, or design. Inability to grab attention here will be wrong for building your clientele.
Remember, a few things in a trust inspiring design are:
- No spelling, grammatical or informational errors.
- No website templates (including the free ones) or website builders. Hire a healthcare professional instead.
- Make sure all the forms and links work as intended. No use of functional errors.
Now that we are familiar with the essential website feature of healthcare web design, it’s time to hop on to the next important step – how to design.
How to Design a Medical Website
How to design a healthcare website that engages the users and brings in more ROI is a tough question? The answer is hidden in the following steps.
Follow them not intuitively but dedicatedly and see the results that unfold.
Step 1. Pre-Design Planning
The step before the actual design lays the foundation for a great design. So do not leave any step in this stage.
Interview with Founder
While you may have an idea, it is suggested to ask the customers about theirs likes and dislikes. Ask all essential questions you need to.
- Do they like the medical web design?
- Are they satisfied with the performance?
- What did they not like on a similar website in the market?
- What improvements do they want? Is there anything additional they are looking forward to?
The answers will help you understand the requirements of the users.
Understand Your Vision behind the Product
Having an idea is not enough. You must have a vision that takes you through the process: content management system, designing and development, and medical marketing.
Creating the website gives a purpose and even motivates in times when you would think of giving up.
Ask yourself:
- Do you feel excited about the project?
- What do you care about the most?
- Would you like to change something?
- How will it shape the future of healthcare services?
Affirmative answers to the above will help you understand your vision. Define the goal needed to achieve. Unless you focus on specific goals, you cannot achieve them.
Document your goals just like the table below so that nothing is forgotten:
| The Goals | How to Accomplish It? |
| Increase patients onboarding | User-friendly website, well-organized content, search engine optimization, and effective CTA. |
| Become an authority in your niche | Add new information regularly, provide quality content on your healthcare website, establish trust through design and functionalities, digital marketing on social media and other websites, upgrade contact information. Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center has some engaging health-related content. One can find well-written articles on various health subjects. |
| Better communication with potential users | Live chat, webinars, quality content that prompts a user to return. |
| Brand building | Reputation management, promotions. |
Some of them are design-related, some are not. The whole idea is to help you understand how to define your goals with regard to healthcare website design.
Once accomplished, it is now time to move to the research part.
Design Research
To tell you the truth, your medical website’s design is a confluence of the competitor’s work and the market demands. You may like to go exclusive, but the necessity speaks of volume.
So, go with the following:
| Research of competitors | Understand your competitors. It helps in substantiating whether you are going in the right direction or not. For instance, you decide to design a healthcare website for an orthopedic clinic. By checking your rival websites, you will get an idea of how things should be presented. Look at graphics, navigation, text and its placement, fonts, and font choices on their website. Are you satisfied with the user experience? If yes, note it. If not? Then also, note. You may like to ignore this aspect but knowing the competitor’s strengths and weaknesses play a crucial role in designing a successful website. Take, for instance, telemedicine. Our SpdLoad team created an app to beat the competition. This initial request was met by comparing the available solutions and in-depth research of the customers. |
| Top practices in the niche | Incorporating best practices ensure a positive perception of years of experience in the minds of the users. Check some eye-opening stats below:
Remember, a good healthcare website design involves two things primarily:
Both are important and can be ensured with best practices only. Some of them include:
Above all, maintain global standards when it comes to navigation and images. For one of our clients, who wanted us to create a HIPAA compliant application, we accomplished it in MedPortal, much to the client’s satisfaction. |
After the preparatory phase is completed, it is time to use the research results to develop a user-friendly experience.
Step 2. Craft the User Experience
A good UX design enhances the experience users will have while interacting with your medical website.
Build a Mind Map
A mind map supports a designer in visualizing the healthcare website through design ideas. It encourages brainstorming in the following manner:
- Materialize the website concept, reveal hidden problems, and make them clearer.
- The entire team can contribute ideas explaining all basic mechanics.
While a pen and paper are a preferred choice for many, mind mapping software is a good idea too.
Some of the online tools that can help you in creating a mindmap in your medical web design include XMind, Mindmeister, Lucidchart, iMindQ, and more.
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Design Low and High Fidelity Prototypes
In a software design, low fidelity is usually paper-based and rarely permits user interactions. They vary from handwritten mock-ups to sometimes printouts. Besides, they take very little time for creation.
It is of two types – paper prototype and clickable wireframe.
High-fidelity prototypes are computer-based and pave the way for realistic user interactions. They, in a way, look and function as the actual product (read website) would do. The popular techniques include coded prototypes and digital prototypes.
The quick conceptualization with the above prototypes streamlines a healthcare website or app design process making it easier for the designers to make changes.
Thinking through UX Writing
Most people undermine the importance of textual content in healthcare website design. Even the specialists opine in their favor. No wonder then that designing a CTA button takes considerable time.
Every word in UX writing serves a multitude of functions. For example, the short text carries information for the users and motivates them to explore before deciding the final destination.
Remember, UX is a design element, and its impact is due to the visual representation.
The table below highlights a few practices for writing effective UX writing in medical website design:
| No Lorem Ipsum | Every word appears differently. So, when replaced with the actual copy, it may not appear proper. Integrate actual content as early as possible in the design. |
| No complicated language |
|
| Use Numbers | Numbers are powerful. These are often associated with sizes, facts, statistics and are considered valuable. |
| Voice your Brand and Tone | Be watchful with your tone. It becomes the voice of your brand. Use similar speech patterns, words, and sentence structures throughout your content. Brand voice is the number of words in your headlines, punctuation, pronouns, humorous text, and more. |
| Add a tint of creativity | Be short and informative. Add positive emotions wherever you can. |
After creating the user experience, you need to make sure that the design is visually pleasing and memorable.
Step 3. Build the User Interface
Now comes the time to add look and style to your healthcare website. But there are a few things you should be careful of. Take note.
Pay Attention to Choosing Colors
If you are looking to build a medical website, pay special attention to the colors.
If you have noticed, the content, galleries, and typography of these healthcare websites vary significantly from other websites. However, the colors unify them and differentiate them from the rest as most use white and blue.
White is a great color as it does not interfere with the content of medical website design. And blue is often used as it is also the color worn by doctors.
Also, blue signifies calmness, reliability, and stability. These reasons make the two colors a preferred choice for medical websites.
Nonetheless, bright colors are rarely used in medical websites. Think before experimenting. Always remember, the right color combination helps connect with the user sentiment.
Ready to Develop Your Own Medical Website?
Following these best UX, UI, and customization practices will set your medical website apart. Patients are looking for an exceptional, trustworthy experience when seeking care online.
Now that you know the strategic approach to take, you need an expert web development team to bring your vision to life. SpdLoad specializes in crafting custom health service websites that convert visitors and reinforce credibility.
We guide you through every step – from information architecture to visual design to security compliance. Our medical sites are intuitive to navigate, fully accessible, responsive across devices, and integrate seamlessly with your practice management software.
Get in touch for a free consultation today to evaluate your goals and options.
We’ll take care of you while you take excellent care of your patients.
