Redesigning of Gleneagles website
For this project, we were to prepare a pitch for the given brief. Our “client” is Gleneagles Hospital, Singapore. Our group comprised of 3 members and we were tasked to work on Gleneagles’ website.
The main problems, opportunities and requirements are shown in the followings.

Business Research
The first thing we did after receiving the brief was to do a research on the organisation and the mentioned website.
We found out that the organisation is a private hospital in Singapore, under the Parkway Pantai group, together with other hospitals like Mount Elizabeth and other hospitals overseas.
Leveraging its global track record for medical excellence and managing world-class hospitals, Parkway Pantai is committed to making a difference in people’s lives through excellent patient care, steadily expanding its reach in markets where demand for quality care is strong and growing.
Gleneagles Hospital prides itself for providing top-class medical services to its patients.
We found out that about 65% and 20% of the page views came from Singapore and Indonesia respectively. That is where we realised that many overseas potential patients would use the website to do their research.
Besides doing research on the company and its website, we also researched on its competitors, NUH and Thomson Medicals so we would have a greater idea of how hospital websites look like and their navigations.
Users Research
In order to find out if the problems mentioned in the brief are what their users are having problem with, we carried out user interview and usability testing on the current website.
The usability test showed that more users had problem finding information on the mobile website as opposed to the desktop version of the website. One of the main problems being that the users were unfamiliar with the main navigation. The navigation used by the mobile website is similar to those found on mobile apps. Users find it hard to associate such navigations to mobile websites.

Also, based on the user interviews, we found a distinct difference between foreigners and locals when it comes to the process of finding doctors or treatments.
Locals would usually go to a general practitioner and be referred to the specialists. Otherwise, they would already be with the specialist for a long time and sticking to the consultation schedules. They would also have a greater flexibility in the schedules.
Whereas for foreigners, they would go straight to the doctor, otherwise, the specialisation department as they would have an idea of why they would want to come all the way to Singapore to get the procedure/s done. They would also have less flexibility in their schedules as they have many other considerations like lodging and air tickets.
Information gathered also shows that users prefer to use mobile devices to find information as it is convenient. Though they would like it if there is a big screen for them to read through the information heavy website.
Based on the research, 2 personas were formed.


Jimmy is our main persona as websites would be the primary source to find information on the hospital. Also, the brief mentioned that the hospital has a cosmopolitan of patients, thus foreigners patients would also be their targetted customer instead of just locals. Thus, Jimmy was chosen to be focused on instead of Jessica.
A customer journey map was created based on Jimmy’s flow of work.
The main problems we identified were mainly at the process of him choosing the doctor and finding his schedule to book an appointment with him.
Solutions were created to address the problems identified.
Solutions
We want to let the users find information they require efficiently and intuitively.
So a few things were enhanced.
- Original main navigations which resembles app navigations had been removed and the navigations are placed in places that are more intuitive.
- To know the background of the doctor, patients had to read through chunks of doctor’s past experiences. Therefore the past experience of the doctor were organised into point form for easier browsing.
- Previously doctor’s schedules were not available and to know if the doctor is available, patients would either have to fill in the enquiry form or drop hospital an email. Therefore we included the doctor’s schedule on the doctor’s page using a calendar visual.
Wireframes & Prototye
Wireframes were created and the initial prototype had been created. As based on research, majority of the users had problem and finds information on-the-go, we decided to do “mobile-first”. Designs for the mobile website was designed first and adapted into the desktop version.
With the initial prototype, we did a round of usability testing with 5 participants. Their comments included to link up the calendar on the doctor’s page to the appointment page as they expected the calendar to be interactive. Some also commented that the tabs which show different way to carry out searches may not be clear enough that they are clickable.
These aspects had been improved in the prototype shown in the presentations.
The prototype is required to be responsive- adapts to the device the users are viewing it on.
Mobile version Prototype:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-3I7k7YgIjaaGhkb0NZNFE5NnM

Desktop version prototype:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-3I7k7YgIjaWjMzWDBuQ2NQSWs

Next step
As the research done is still quite basic, more research needs to be done; more interviews and usability tests, so that more problem could be identified and validated.
Based on research, many users commented that the terminologies used in the website was quite difficult for them to understand, especially the specialisations. We hope to have assistance from the hospital so to understand more on how can the content can be better represented or classified.
Also, during one of the interviews with a foreigner user, he mentioned that in his hometown, they are able to log in and view their past and upcoming medical appointments and their basic medical details on the hospital’s website. This created convenience for the users as they would not need to call or go down to the hospital to retrieve such informations. We thought that this may value-add to the website and not just a place where information of the hospital can be found. To expand on this idea, we thought of creating an app which may simplify the communication with the hospital.
Final thoughts
This is one of the harder projects for me as I am not familiar with hospital websites. More research had to be done on such websites. The terminologies used on the hospital’s website was hard for users to understand in the usability testings, thus it was harder to conduct the sessions.
4 main things I learnt in this project:
- Communication is important within group. Chemistry between group members can help to better the presentation, especially at the Q&A portion.
- We need to do rehearsals for the presentations so to familiarise ourselves with the slides. Last minute changes can be disruptive to the presentation itself.
- We need to adapt quickly situation, especially in front of the client. Try not to show them that we are having a problem despite having one, especially during the pitch as this was reduce their confidence in the group. Show the best only.
- Either cover the breadth or the depth of the prototype. Cannot simplify problems.
