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. Some of the project challenges were: 

• The old website's structure made it confusing to accessing mental health resources and care options
• The outdated Content Management System limited the editorial team's vision and ability to make related content connections.
• The new site needed to reach a wider more inclusive audience with a focus on rural, low-income, and latinx audiences.

One of main project objectives was to create more pathways for families to connect with the right mental health resources. We acomplished this through a new Resource Finder, Connect to Care page, and updated topic pages.

The information architecture was deeply informed 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
• 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

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 System

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.