Bodhi Tree, a mental health counseling group with branches in Nyack and Cornwall in New York, They offer tele-health and in-person counseling sessions. Originally founded by a mental health professional, Julie Taft. LMHC. the team now includes 5 full-time clinicians and a growing roster of individual and group therapy offerings, with plans for further expansion in the coming months. They're growing fast, and that growth has been supported by multiple redesigns of their website to scale alongside the growing scope of their business.
Originally, Bodhi Tree MHC contacted me to build a site for their newly-founded Mental Health Counseling group. While Bodhi Tree had already established an online presence through social media (see links below), they were in need of a central online presence where they could direct their community for more information about their clinicians and their services. Now on the third major redesign, the scale of the website has grown to encompass their quickly growing team of full-time clinicians, as well as to include more information about their current services, including individual counseling sessions, as well as a new set of group sessions developed and led by their amazing clinicians.
While the original website was coded from scratch using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, it quickly became apparent over the course of multiple iterations that more efficient tools were needed, so that changes could be made quickly across the site, and elements updated as efficiently as possible. Our approach to the project was to completely redesign the website in Webflow, with a focus on user experience and SEO. This involved: Conducting extensive user research to understand the needs and pain points of the target audience
Creating wireframes and mockups to test different design concepts and ensure the website was easy to use and navigate.
Using a mobile-first design approach to optimize the website for mobile devices, which measured metrics show account for more than half of the total visits to the site
Implementing fast-loading and responsive website technology to improve the website's performance
Conducting extensive keyword research to better align the site's content with real-world searches conducted by users around the globe
Integrating user-friendly and effective call-to-action elements to encourage visitors to take action The UX design process involved reimagining the skeleton of the site to better address the needs of different users, and address responsiveness issues present in the previous iteration. User journeys were developed based on thoughtful consideration of the individuals already accessing the site, and using their feedback and industry best practices to make better-informed design decisions. Wireframes and sitemaps were created to ensure a final result that worked to achieve this end. The visual design of the site was an expansion on the already existing user interface, incorporating elements present in the site in order to create a clean, modern look that doesn't get in the way of the content presented in the pages. Visual elements were updated to be consistent across sections and pages, and new elements were incorporated where the content dictated a need. Once the design prototypes were completed and animations were mapped out, development began on a clean slate, rewriting custom code where necessary. No CMS or eCommerce solutions were needed, requiring no bespoke back end to the site, though plans for a blog will likely require these solutions in the future. Testing uncovered some lingering issues in the functionality of the site across different devices, but these issues were quickly ironed out, allowing for a relatively quick development phase.
While it included all the necessary information, the previous flow of the user interface was unnecessarily confusing, and the range of users had not been thoroughly considered. This newest redesign of their site seeks to simplify the overall user experience of their website, creating a harmonious interface and clear, well-defined paths to obtaining the information a current or potential patient might need. The site was also updated to improve overall SEO, to ensure that potential clients in need of a mental health counselor are able to find the site and quickly navigate to the information they need in order to make an informed decision.
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