RECOVER Initiative
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) RECOVER (Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery) Initiative aims to understand, prevent, and treat Long COVID.
Client
National Institutes of Health
Roles
Product Strategy, Lead UI/UX Designer, Creative Director, Visual Designer
Date
April 2021 - Present
Visit the Site
About
This $1.15 billion research initiative brings together scientists, clinicians, patients, and caregivers to take on a critical problem: recovery from the long-term effects of COVID. Research awardees focus on studying different populations of research volunteers.
I serve as the Creative Lead for this Initiative overseeing the design of the main website, the brand, and visual identity. I am the primary UI/UX designer and work closely with content strategists and the research and engineering teams to rapidly launch iterations of the site which are informed by user testing and overall product strategy.
Challenge
How do we disseminate information on Long COVID and the Initiative’s research findings?
As the Creative Lead for the RECOVER Initiative, my role was to create an intuitive website and a visual identity that provides health researchers information on understanding, diagnosing, preventing, and treating Long COVID through insights learned from the Initiative. The site also provides the general public information on Long COVID.
Role
- Worked with a cross-functional team of communication professionals, content strategists, UX researchers, subject matter experts, product managers, and developers using agile methodologies to design, launch and test the RECOVER’s Initiative’s website in a multi phased iterative approach.
- Partnered with content strategists to define structure, length, and plain language best practices across the website. Woredk closely together to quickly iterate on content and design revisions.
- Created low and high fidelity wireframes for the website based on user-centered design best practices. Designed prototypes working in conjunction with the UX research team to get user feedback on usability, messaging, and imagery. Followed industry best practices and design patterns to create optimal solutions for all UI wireframes and prototypes.
- Partnered with the development team throughout the design lifecycle to collect UI feasibility input. Created a web style guide to aid with development handoff and to ensure consistency throughout the site. Strategized across internal teams to meet rapid deadlines through a phased agile approach and ensuring web components can be quickly built.
- Provided quality control reviews of the website across multiple platforms and devices, oversee auditing of the site for WCAG AA accessibility and submit bug requests through GitHub and Asana.
Results
36+
36+ organizations use the overall brand system for RECOVER including National Institutes of Health.
7
Seven-fold increase in visitor traffic after pivoting the overall strategy in response to user feedback and client needs around the information architecture of the research section.
12K
Successfully launched initial landing page in a 2-month time span to address the high priority nationwide health emergency resulting in 8,100 visitors, 12,000 page views, and 966 PDF downloads in the first month of production.
992K
Since the launch, reached over 500,000 users with 992,600 page views.
Initiative's Impact
Process
The RECOVER website and brand provides a cohesive experience for users to learn about Long COVID, how the research is progressing, and serves as the government’s “one stop shop” for all things on Long COVID.
The approach for this project is based around the double diamond method of discover, define, develop, and deliver. Initially, we had a rapid timeline of 2 months to create the site and the brand which made this a truly collaborative effort across the internal team.
Our primary users are the general public who may have (or had) Long COVID and the scientific research community. When performing user testing, we include both groups and find the common threads between their different needs.
The initial site was built to meet the needs of stakeholders, we are now pausing to do a full site audit and additional user testing. Content is being reviewed for consistency and plain language, the site is going through usability testing, and I’m performing heuristic evaluation of the overall UX.
Moving forward, I’m creating a robust design system that will increase efficiencies. This will be shared with the other two organizations with sister sites so we can have a more cohesive digital experience.
Process Flow
Initial Wireframes
Example of Site Improvements over Time Based on User Feedback (Left: Original Homepage, Right: Updated Homepage)
Visual Identity
A symbol that reflects the journey towards understanding Long COVID.
In tandem with designing the site, I also led the creation of a logo and the visual identity of the RECOVER Initiative.
The logo mark combines the COVID virus with a road to represent the journey forward towards recovery or the road to resilience for people suffering from Long COVID. Visual elements and colors were selected to convey hope as people struggle with this difficult condition.
Logo Mark
Brand Guidelines
Social Media Imagery
