[Sigia-l] Pharma websites: the importance of a caregiver link on the homepage

[Mary Tung]

thank you Jared. That was kind of the answer I was looking for. As I
am re-architecting a site now that has a problem of getting the
visitors past the homepage, I'm trying to do several pathways that
have the visitor on the page, regardless if they are the patient or
caregivers, the main (1st) person.

The complying argument I gave the client was that visitors to the site
, whether they are patients or caregivers, want to learn more about
the product, the benefits and side effects, which is why such links
get the most click.

I also said that the information that usually resides in the "Infor.
for caregivers" usually are not very useful information. They do not
contain information about the product, how to take care of the
patients on such product. Rather, they contain filler information that
is more to transition / accommodate the patient's lifestyle.


On 8/7/05, Jared M. Spool <jspool at uie.com> wrote:
> At 05:33 PM 7/26/2005, Mary Tung wrote:
> >I am currently working on a drug website, and I'm wondering if there's
> >any studies / opinions on the importance of having a "information for
> >caregivers" link on the homepage.
> >
> >We decided not to put such a link on that homepage, but we need to
> >make a complying reason why. [...]
> >
> >Please give me your thoughts on this, and any studies done on the
> >usefulness of information for caregivers.
> 
> There's actually 2 issues here:
> 
> 1) Providing information for caregivers
> 2) Putting a link saying "Information for Caregivers"
> 
> For #1, our research shows that this is definitely something that should
> seriously be considered. We did a tremendous amount of work in the area of
> chronic illness and having resources for caregivers of patients was a real
> need. People who are close to the folks that are suffering, but not
> suffering themselves, need a way to relate to what's going on. It's very
> hard for caregivers to truly understand what the patient is going through
> and how to be helpful. The caregivers we talked to were quite anxious to
> get their hands on anything that can help them.
> 
> For #2, very few of the caregivers ever thought of themselves as
> caregivers. In fact, people in our studies rarely know what labels to apply
> to themselves. As Stephanie mentioned, it's hard for people to know which
> category they are in. We recommend to our clients they focus on
> task-oriented links instead of user-type labels.
> 
> Jared
> 
> Jared M. Spool
> User Interface Engineering
> http://www.uie.com    jspool at uie.com
> 
> UI10 Spotlight Presenter: Flow author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
> See details at http://www.uiconf.com
> 
> 
> 


-- 
Mary T.