Tobacco Cessation
Background
I have been involved in four major iterations of the BeFree brand and website. The first version was created circa 2010 to support smoke-free laws and businesses. As smoke-free laws were passed, v.2 provided support for tobacco-free spaces, connected people to a nationally operated quitline service, and began to accumulate secondhand smoke content. The third iteration is where the site began to outgrow itself. Packed with information but no accompanying structure or clear audience hierarchy the site was rebuilt based on goals and objectives with an updated purpose, accessibility, and function in mind.
The goal of the all-new Be Tobacco Free SD was to serve as a bridge between the Tobacco Control Department and community advocates, healthcare professionals, educators, and DOH staff, all of whom want to help prevent tobacco use and promote cessation.
Challenges
2020. The website rebuild was no longer at the top of the priority list for the South Dakota Department of Health.
Some preliminary audience research was conducted ahead of the pandemic but the primary users of the site were largely unavailable for user research during the mid and final stages of prototyping and testing.
Much of the base content was dated, highly academic, very technical, and simply not very engaging or user-friendly.
Meaningful content was often hidden in PDFs and users were being directed to a maze of off-site sources with no preface or explanation.
My contributions
Conducted preliminary UX research including stakeholder and user interviews, shadow sessions, and analytics analysis.
Extensive secondary research of similar national and state sites.
Developed user journeys for internal use to help define wicked problems and develop solutions geared toward helping busy public health audiences find and access information and tools quickly and easily.
Developed the content strategy and supervised a team of content writers as we distilled simplified, and organized content.
Ensured consistent tone, voice, and compliance with source and reference requirements.
Worked with developers and web designers on information architecture, sitemap versioning, and branding.
Provided high-fidelity prototypes and walked clients through the design thinking process.
Results
The updated site launched during the pandemic. Initial feedback was limited and site visits were slow to build. However, momentum continued to grow and one year after launch traffic to the site surpassed v.3 average monthly visits and users were staying on the pages for minutes. The number of downloads began to increase and newsletter opt-ins were growing steadily. By all accounts, this site was proving to be a workhorse for tobacco prevention and cessation advocates.
