Child Mind Institute

The new ChildMind.org site connects more quality care and resources to more families.

New and returning users are more likely to visit the Request for an Appointment (+486% increase). The site also had a +14.9% increase in the number of visits from Spanish Speaking users.

Child Mind Institute is a global leader in children’s mental health care, research and education. I was the lead designer for the information architecture and visual design for the new website.

Agency: Constructive

Services Offered

Design System · Organization Website Design · Family Resource Center

User research, testing, and analytics informed every UX decision

The new website's structure and pathways make it easier to accessing mental health resources and care options. The updated Content Management System (CMS) expanded the editorial team's vision and ability to make related content connections. The new site reachs a wider more inclusive audience with a focus on rural, low-income, and latinx audiences.

The information architecture and wireframe phase of the project was informed deeply by several research key activities:

– Developed analytics insights based their current traffic and conversion goals
– Audit the current content (over 2000 articles and guides)
– Develop audiences personas and journey mapping
– Held Stakeholder workshops and interviews

We developed and tested wireframes based on their digital service design, mapping people who are curious about children mental health to actively booking appointments and sharing helpful resources. Our wireframes were influenced directly through several rounds of user testing, ensuring the right audience knew exactly where to access the right information

Child-Mind-Institute-Post-Types-and-Taxonomy-1

Documenting the Backend

We made an extensive spreadsheet outlining all the content-types and taxonomies on the current and new site's Wordpress backend. This allowed the client, project team, and external developers to be on the same page about content requirements. And we knew what exactly we needed to migrate to the new site, which saved a lot of time cause CMI had over 2,500 existing articles and guides.

Establishing the New Brand

The design was rooted in design principles that we co-created with the CMI team. We choose type families that express a friendly brand tone and are utilitarian enough to support long-form digital publishing.

We created a new color system and illustration style called 'Growth Rings' that expressed emotion while still feeling rational and bright.

A New Family Resource Center

The main focus of the project was to create a new resource portal for families to help support children who are struggling with mental health, behavior, or learning challenges.

The largest audience challenge was understanding different audience’s emotions to getting the right care. Some families are more comfortable talking about care, while others feel worried and uncertain. We created a positive ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ experience that allows people to access the right resources in different ways.

The multiple ways for families to find the right mental health resources and care:

Family Resource Center Homepage

Designed to be straightforward and accessible, the resource center homepage gives users multiple ways to find resources. The resource search bar transforms into a list of popular topics once the user clicks onto it. User testing found new users appreciated popular tags when performing their initial search into mental health topics.

Fully-Integrated Search and Curated Topic Hubs

The new site optimizes both search functionality, and also gives the Child Mind editorial team the flexibility to create fully customizable topic pages. The topic pages act as a more human-centric introduction into serious nuanced mental health topics spanning ADHD, Autism, Behavior Problems, College, Eating Disorders, Gender, and more

Article and Guides

Our content strategy on the new resource center follows a “bite, snack, meal” approach. A “bite” content are the ‘What You’ll Learn’ sections at the beginning of most articles, which is helpful for busy families who just need quick answers. The “snack” content consist of short articles which are broken into 3-5 sections. Guides are “meals”—extensive explainers content that cover all mental health topics on the resource center.

Helpful functionality within Article and Guides

Article and Guide pages include an interactive table of contents and progress bar to ease reading and set expectation. The ‘More Like This’ right sidebar allows the Child Mind Editorial team to manually select relevant articles and topics for future engagement. We chose Graphik and Tiempos typefaces for their editorial and easy-to-read attributes.

1-Minute Resource Finder

The Resource Finder is a simple 1 minute quiz that matches families’ concerns with relevant Topics and Resources. It’s another pathway for families who are new to mental health to learn more about topics they might have not previously considered.

The Resource Center connects to Child Mind’s direct care offerings

Creating natural links between resources with the Child Mind’s clinical care was a large part of this project. Most families browsing the resource center will not reach out about Child Mind’s care, but that shouldn’t prevent opportunities to place well-timed CTAs for those who are interested in telehealth or in-person services. The site’s ‘Request an Appointment’ page saw a major +486+ spike in page views after the redesign launch because there were more natural pathways for those families who wanted to take the next step in getting care for their child.

The results speak for themselves

The new site launched September 2021 and has been praised as a success across Child Mind Institute and the families they help. The Child Mind Institute website was awarded a 2022 Webby Awards Honoree for Charitable Organizations/Non-Profit Websites and Mobile Sites

The analytics also point that the site has extensively increased its reach to more families

Organic Traffic jumped up to a +33.15% YOY increase after the redesign.
The Resource Center main page and Topics now have about +67% more page views than before.
Articles have experienced a +18% increase in page views.
The site had a +14.9% increase in the number of visits from Spanish Speaking users.
Page loads are 31% faster
Users are more likely to visit the Request for an Appointment form (+486% increase in views) which also shows in the increased number of conversions.
Significant Donations conversion rate improvement (+39.88% YOY)

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