Redesigning the user interface
July 16, 2011
We've known for a while that our user interface needs a redesign. The search results page sports a powerful filter interface. You can say, for example, that you want you to see doctors that accept any Aetna insurance except for Aetna Select. You can say you want to see any doctor in a certain area who has graduated from either University of Texas Southwestern or University of Virginia medical schools, all in the same query. As you update, the counts next to each option also update, indicating how many providers would still match if you were to filter on that option. The problem?
The interface ends up with a lot of checkboxes. And long lists. We closed some of the filter trees so that users wouldn't be overwhelmed with the number of choices, but that created the problem of some users not knowing about the options. There are other issues as well. With so many filter options, which attributes are most important? Some people know what's important to them (whether that be residency, years of practice, or patient reviews). Some others would like more guidance in sorting out which doctors to further research. Another issue that has come up is people wondering how are the results sorted.
Lots of questions to tackle. And this time, we'll have to keep in mind that we ourselves are not the target users. If you have ideas on how the user interface should be re-designed, please post it to our discussion board or contact us. It'd be great to hear from you. Thanks.