UX Writer, Content Designer
UW Medicine.org
Content governance
Website alert banner during COVID pandemic
On March 10, 2020 the University of Washington's Emergency Operations Center (EOC) was activated in response to the outbreak of COVID in the community. Their mission: Minimize the impact of emergencies and disasters. The EOC team decided that the sitewide website alert was a good place to put COVID messaging to keep the public informed. They began submitting updates to our web operations team. It was an ambiguous problem. Seattle WAS the epicenter of the epidemic. And the team submitting the updates was comprised of the top levels of leadership. But the alerts were text-heavy and crammed full with too much information — overwhelming users. And at times, the tone bordered on alarmist.
BEFORE
With the blessing of my Director, I began speaking up to the EOC team members I knew best, trying to nudge the alerts in a more user-friendly direction. With no formalized process in place for governance, I would often surface recommendations informally in an email or meeting.
I learned that mocking up my suggestions in our stage environment helped people to better understand why improvement was needed. And yes, I always double-checked to make sure I was in stage, not production.
Progress was two steps forward, one step back. During moments of crisis, we could lose ground. During a vaccine shortage, an alert message with the word "inventory" was submitted, and I had a low moment. It seemed obvious that no one would think of vaccines as "inventory." But over time, trust was built, and the Digital Experience team regained governance of this valuable asset.
AFTER
I would write a brief summary of the latest COVID-related changes and hyperlink to the relevant pages. At the time, the public was desperate for vaccine information so I include a brief "status update" on who was currently eligible. No scary messages, no mention of "inventory." Character count: ≤160 with spaces
Alert Banner Specifications After re-establishing our team's ownership of the alert banner, I wrote specifications to operationalize governance of the alert banner.
UW Medicine.org
Content governance
Template for closed clinics
I noticed that when clinics closed, the location pages were simply being deleted from the website. A patient who had previously visited a clinic would come upon a 404 error page, with no further information provided. This resulted in a poor user experience — and a missed opportunity.
What I did
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Identified the problem
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Surfaced the issue to stakeholders
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Recommended adding visual and content cues to the page to funnel patients to related UW Medicine clinics
BEFORE
AFTER
Our UX Designer took the baton from here and worked with developers to create a closed clinic template.
