Upcoming search form changes
July 21, 2012
If you go to our home page, you'll see that the main feature is a multi-part search form that you can use to browse for health care providers by location and specialty, look up a particular provider whose name you know, or browse for providers who commonly treat a specific condition (like glaucoma) or perform a particular procedure (like LASIK). Based on feedback we've received from our users, we're working on making this form more intuitive and easier to use, and you should see these changes soon.
Most importantly, we want to make sure people can easily choose the most efficient and hassle-free path toward finding a doctor who's a great fit for their needs. With our old (as in, current, for now) layout, this wasn't happening. For example, in a user feedback session I would show a user the search form and ask him to tell me how he would use this form to look for a doctor for a family member who has diabetes. More often than not, the user would begin speculating about what kind of specialist might treat a diabetic patient. Browse by location and specialty form on the left side of the page. Browse by condition or procedure form; however, since this form is located closer to the lower right side of the page, people's attention isn't drawn toward it.
We're trying to fix this. What you'll see as changes are rolled out is that the three different kinds of searches we offer will be combined into one central location on the screen. Our hope is that, for example, someone who's looking for a doctor to treat ADD or Carpal Tunnel Syndrome will no longer have to guess what kind of specialist she should look for, but rather can easily see that she can use our site to search directly for a doctor who has experience treating her particular condition.
We're also releasing a few other changes to try to make the page look cleaner and less busy, and we're planning on adding some snippets of recent reviews at the bottom of the page to highlight the fact that many people are leaving reviews of the providers on our site. We hope you enjoy these changes, and, as always, let us know if you have any suggestions for further improvements.