Prescription Misuse, Abuse & Addiction
Background
AvoidOpioidSD.com was originally built quickly as a micro-site in response to the national opioid epidemic. Since 2018, the site has grown exponentially and evolved from focusing specifically on prescription misuse and abuse to addressing and reducing stigma, providing information for pharmacies and providers (including an interactive emergency department toolkit), featuring addiction counseling and social services for people and families affected by both prescription and illicit use, and providing a number of preventative services and actionable strategies to help keep South Dakotans informed and safe.
Keeping up with content additions, streamlining navigation, and overhauling original content has been an ongoing challenge I have very much enjoyed. I played a key role in the development and content strategy for the site and continue to author and edit content as services are updated and additional sections are added.
Challenges
The site is funded through federal grants provided to the South Dakota Departments of Health and Social Services.
Each agency has separate budgets and specific priority projects so being clear about actionable goals is critical.
Decision-makers are often unfamiliar with website content best practices and the design thinking process.
iFrames. The key data section is powered by Tableau. The client needed to be able to update data in real time so even though this solution isn’t particularly mobile-friendly, the content is most often viewed on desktop and it alleviates the need for agency or developers to be on-call to make updates (also keeps the backend of the site safer).
More iFrames. The searchable database is not under our purview, and not user-friendly.
My Contributions
Developed the initial site– everything from navigation to content through all aspects of design thinking, branding, ideation, and prototyping.
Continue to enhance with updates to the information architecture, functionality, content strategy, UX writing, visual communication, and UI practices.
Routinely work with the creative team to concept and write corresponding campaign elements to drive traffic to the website.
Work with web team designers and developers to provide high-fidelity prototypes for new content and content updates.
Supervise developers and liaise with clients to provide rationale for updates.
New to the site in 2022
This new content went live on December 8, 2022.
We began promoting it to vulnerable audiences on social media platforms on December 13.
Targeted broadcast radio was added to the mix on December 19.
In spite of being promoted in a retail messaging "high tide" environment, our posts broke through the clutter and in a little over 2 weeks drove website traffic to the new pages to the highest levels since the site launched– generating nearly 4,000 page views, 1,300 link clicks on Facebook/Instagram and over 3,000 swipe-ups on Snapchat.
Coming soon in 2023:
We will be adding a Media Library that converts the wonky-placeholder-emergency Order Free Print Materials page to a functioning shopping cart.
Media buying best practices to help coalitions, educators, and the public understand how to leverage PSA status and negotiate with local media.
Brand standards (don’t mess with the logo) and national resources (reinforcing the fact that our messages align with guidance from respected, science-based sources).
Digital media how-to-share guidelines.
Print material digital (semi-customizable) downloads.
