
On your website, how do you decide where to place your most important content? On a desktop it’s fairly easy because we know people use the “T” pattern to skim content. If you are like a lot of our clients, you use side panels and place them on your pages accordingly. But what happens to those panels on a responsive site?
If you haven’t given this much thought – now would be a good time to start. Panels on sites using responsive design can fall to the very bottom of the page when a mobile device is used. And this can lessen the effectiveness of your calls to action.
Recently Geonetric tackled the problem of “falling panels” by working some priority magic into our design templates. We worked with Abington Health, which was in the process of a redesign, to help prioritize content and talk about what will appear where for different devices. Design templates were created to allow them the ability to dictate how important the content in the panels are – allowing Abington Health to control where the panels will appear as the screen gets smaller. While a major call to action may sit in the side panel on a desktop view, as the screen resizes, that panel might actually squeeze in above what sits below the main content on a desktop view instead of the at the very bottom of the page. A valuable solution to a difficult problem!
The website redesign was driven by Abington Health’s efforts to rebrand and streamline four of its separate websites into one system-wide site. As anyone who has done this will tell you, it’s not easy! Abington Health jumped in head first – we helped them restructure the entire site, rewrite content, remove outdated and duplicate pages and even change their domain to ensure a cohesive experience for their consumers. By prioritizing content within the design, we also helped Abington Health make sure that critical content is presented to all users in the best possible format, no matter what device they are using.
Even though there is still a lot of buzz about responsive design, don’t forget about the content. If you don’t prioritize your content, then having a responsive design may not matter. Need help with your healthcare website content? Give our team a call.
I am a big fan of responsive design. I think empowering the customer with expert guidance in in terms of information management is critical to the process. Additionally, having the ability to create responsive websites and/or landing zones for visitors should drive new and exciting sales opportunities. An informative and well written article.