Informed Health Choices website

We are delighted to be able to support the work of Informed Health Choices in promoting critical thinking about health care in school children.

Their resource books and audio materials have been proven effective in randomized controlled trials, making this project a standard bearer for how education can improve critical thinking.

This international, multilingual collaboration supports these efforts in a broad range of settings, including less developed countries.  The group is constantly evaluating and evolving its work.

The Challenge

IHC invited us to bid for this because we’d previously worked on a number of projects together.  We were delighted to accept, as we believe that this project embodies many of the values we support:  collegiality, evidence-based content and working with end-users.

Put simply, our brief was to modernise the design, which had become out of date. 

The first step is always to think about the target audience:  who are you really trying to reach?  And why?

But this website has a dual purpose.  It’s all very well having shiny features and gimmicks to attract new users, but what about the people who use it every day?  IHC is a collaboration between many dozens of researchers based all round the world.  A key use case for the website is as a repository of knowledge for this team.

The challenge, then, was to balance accessibility to new users with the need to serve as an effective “corporate memory” for the existing network and project staff.

In other words, “don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater”.

The Solution

So we worked very closely with all parties:  the project leaders, network members and a group of end-users.  We interviewed a dozen users and potential users, representing the main target audience groups.  

This gave us invaluable insights into what matters most to them, especially around convenience and clarity.  And it was very helpful for effective baby-bathwater filtration.

Almost all users wanted quick access to the educational resources, so these sit at the top of the page.  There are primary and secondary school teaching materials ready to download and use, and a library of supporting materials such as videos and PDFs.

Most of these resources have also been translated – into 13 languages and counting. 

As a result, we created a new, accessible look and feel, optimised for mobile browsing, that puts the learning resources front and centre.

A website that grows with the project

IHC have recently added resources for secondary schools, and a library of “Key Concepts” related to critical thinking. 

You can explore in-depth examples, references and educational resources for each, and sign up for updates from their email newsletter.

"Minervation took a lead on all the parts of this redesign: interviewing users, identifying their needs, reorganising the menu and site structure, designing a new visual interface, and implementing the solution in Wordpress. They moved the old content into the new space and helped us get started publishing new content.

They’ve been attentive to accessibility issues and best practices for communicating effectively on the web, nudging us gently when they room for improvement.

We are so happy with the end result, and have gotten lots of unsolicited praise from end users. We’ve also become better content producers ourselves. Thank you so much!!!"

Sarah Rosenbaum

Sarah Rosenbaum

Senior Researcher

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