Improving the Video Content Journey for Working Healthcare Professionals
Client Project
UX Research
UX Design
Healthcare
OVERVIEW
Medscape’s Decision Point is a clinical decision support tool that helps healthcare professionals make informed decisions through expert-led, medically reviewed video content. Medscape approached us to improve engagement within their platform
THE CHALLENGE
Healthcare professionals rely on email-driven video links but often overlook the full Decision Point experience. This results in limited content exploration due to a lack of intuitive navigation and unclear entry points beyond individual videos
Client
MedScape
Role
Usability Specialist
Team
Gloria Yang (Me)
Carol Bai
Emily Yip
Rex Fukuchi
Timeline
Apr - May 2025 / 7 weeks
Skills
User Research
User Interface
Visual Design
WHAT IS DECISION POINT?
A tool that supports healthcare professionals make clinical decisions
Medscape’s Decision Point is a clinical decision support tool that provides healthcare professionals with access to medically reviewed, editorially unbiased video content created by Medscape editors and collaborators. The platform allows users to browse, search, and filter video content tailored to their clinical needs.
THE CHALLENGE
Healthcare Professionals engage with Decision Point videos through email drivers, but overlook the broader content experience
Medscape’s Decision Point provides expert-led, unbiased clinical video content, often accessed through direct links in email campaigns. However, users tend to bypass the landing and decision tree pages entirely—resulting in low organic engagement and limited content exploration.
To address this, our team focused on solving two key challenges:
01.
Users engage with individual videos but often miss the context and additional content available through the Decision Point interface.
02.
Users lack intuitive navigation tools, making it difficult to browse, filter, or discover related videos beyond the email-driven entry point.
OUR SOLUTION 🌟
Improving Navigation & Discoverability in Medscape's Decision Point Platform
↓ So how did we get here? Let me walk you through the process! ↓
CLIENT KICK-OFF MEETING
Getting Aligned on Purpose, Priorities, and Users
In our initial meeting with the Medscape team, we gained a deeper understanding of Decision Point's purpose, structure, and targeted audience. The team clarified their main goal: to increase organic engagement with videos beyond email-driven clicks.
We also aligned on the specific areas of focus: the homepage, category page, decision tree page, and video landing pages. These were identified as key moments where users either drop off or miss opportunities to explore further.
Lastly, we defined the target user profile which is working healthcare professionals who spend free time learning about new medical discoveries/research and primarily uses desktop interface for research. This alignment helped us tailor our research approach and ensure our recommendations addressed the right pain points.
RECRUITMENT & PARTICIPANTS
Hearing from the Real Healthcare Professionals
To recruit participants, we used Panelfox to distribute a screener survey and filter for research-driven healthcare professionals. The client also provided a list of interested users.
We selected nine participants, including physicians, nurses, dentists, and a pharmacist, for remote moderated user testing. This mix reflected the diversity of Decision Point’s real-world audience and ensured our insights were grounded in their actual needs and behaviors.
MODERATED USABILITY TESTING 🔎
Uncovering Why HCPs Weren't Engaging with Decision Point
To understand the gap between email-driven traffic and low site engagement, we conducted moderated remote usability testing with nine participants.
Before launching the full study, we each conducted a pilot test with a participant and one of them is a healthcare professional to validate our scenarios and task flows. These early sessions helped us to confirm that the tasks are realistic and clearly worded, and the testing flow is smooth and clear before moving on to full usability testing.
Prior to each session, participants were asked to give their consent for video recording through Google Form, ensuring we could reference the sessions for analysis. Each session began with a brief pre-test questionnaire to understand the participant’s role, daily workflow, and learning habits. This gave us important context for interpreting how and why participants navigated the platform the way they did. Participants were then guided through four scenario-based tasks, designed to simulate realistic use cases from casually browsing the site to navigating the Decision Tree for specific clinical content. The tasks progressed from broad exploration to complex, medically relevant queries to assess both first-time usability and content discovery under pressure.
Following the tasks, we gathered post-test reflections and asked participants to fill out the System Usability Scale (SUS) using Google Form to evaluate the product’s overall usability. This combination of structured tasks, contextual insights, and user feedback helped us uncover critical friction points and areas of opportunity.
ANALYZING THE SYSTEM USABILITY SCALE (SUS)
Identifying Usability Breakdowns Through SUS
To close out our testing, we asked participants to complete the System Usability Scale (SUS) which is a 10-item questionnaire measuring usability and learnability. The overall SUS score was 74.2, above the industry benchmark of 68, and the learnability score was 87.5, suggesting that users quickly understood how to use the interface.
However, the usability score of 70.8 indicated there’s still room for improvement in overall flow and task efficiency. These results confirmed key pain points and pointed us toward specific, actionable improvements.
KEY INSIGHTS
We Identified and Prioritized Key Usability Issues
Instead of tracking task success rates, we observed how participants navigated the site, the paths they took, and their feedback. While users appreciated the content quality and overall purpose of Decision Point, we identified several usability issues related to browsing and navigating video content.
We prioritized these issues based on frequency and impact, and used them to develop targeted recommendations to improve navigation, discoverability, and overall user experience.
Issue 1
33% of Users Struggled to Return to the Homepage
During the usability test, 3 out of 9 participants had difficulty navigating back to the homepage from subpages. The current header structure, where the category name appears beside the Decision Point logo, redirects users to the category page, not the homepage.
As a result, users often relied on breadcrumbs or the browser’s back button, which interrupted their browsing flow. This issue became especially frustrating when users were exploring multiple sections in quick succession.
Issue 2
56% of Users Preferred a Search-Driven Experience Over Categories
During the usability test, 5 out of 9 participants expressed more preference for a search-driven experience, mentioning that the categories and filters were too rigid and clicking through them was too time consuming.
Currently, there are dedicated Decision Point search bars in other Decision Point pages (such as the Category Page, the Decision Tree page, and the Video Page). However, there is no search bar on the Decision Point homepage. The search bar on the top right corner of the homepage (Figure 3) is a Medscape search bar that will provide Medscape search results.
Issue 3
33% of Users Said the Category Page Added Friction
When navigating from the Homepage to the Decision Tree page, users expect to be able to filter content for the specific category they have chosen. During our usability testing, we noticed a common trend when it came to how users interacted with the Category page. 3 out of 9 participants arrived at the Category page for the first time and scrolled to the bottom of the page searching for content before scrolling back to the top of the page, because it was not clear what to interact with to get to the next step in the website flow.
There are two types of Category pages: one with a “Start” button at the top leading them to the Decision Tree page, and one that replaces the “Start” button with two drop down filters requiring the user to select from one of two options. This is the only action that is taken on the Category page, and users ultimately questioned the necessity of having an entire page that served to add a barrier to browsing video content.
Issue 4
22% of Users Felt the Filter Panel Overshadowed the Video Results
During usability testing, 2 out of 9 participants expressed confusion when first interacting with the decision tree page (filter panel). Participants found it difficult to distinguish between filters and actual video results. The filter panel occupied a disproportionate amount of screen space, while the results area appeared too small, making it harder to focus on content.
Although the filters were described as “functionally usable”, their current visual presentation and hierarchy did not align with user expectations, especially for first-time users. One participant noted that it “takes more brain power and time to figure out what I'm looking at,” which suggests that the interface creates unnecessary cognitive load during navigation and content discovery.
HERE THEY ARE... OUR FINAL RECOMMENDATIONS! 📣
Improving Decision Point Discovery: Guiding Users from Entry Point to Exploration
01: Provide an Easier Way to Return to Decision Point Homepage
To resolve this navigation issue, we recommend linking the Decision Point logo in the header directly to the homepage to align with user expectations. Additionally, the category label currently placed next to the logo should be moved to the center of the Decision Tree Page, where it can still provide context without acting as a misleading link. This simple change would reduce confusion, support better navigation flow, and help users move between pages with greater ease.
02: Add a Clear, Visible Search Bar on the Decision Point Homepage
In order to accommodate users who prefer a search-driven experience, we recommend adding a clear, visible search bar on the Decision Point Homepage. Additionally, we recommend removing the Medscape search bar on the top right of the homepage to avoid the confusion of having two search bars on one page.
03: Remove Category Page and Link Homepage Directly to the Decision Tree Page
In order to better streamline the experience of users browsing for video content, we recommend removing the Category page entirely from the user flow. This change lessens the amount of clicks the user needs to get to their goal: filtering and seeing the video content that is available in Decision Point.
04: Rebalance Layout to Prioritize Video Results Over Filters
To resolve this layout issue, we recommend reducing the space taken up by the filter panel and expanding the video section, so users can more easily focus on the content which is their primary goal when visiting the site. Additionally, we suggest redesigning the filter panel as a left-aligned, vertical stacked list. Compared to the current grid-style layout, this format is more familiar and allows users to browse filtering options more quickly and with less effort.
CLIENT REACTION AND LOOKING FORWARD
We Received Extremely Positive Feedback from Our Client
Our client responded positively to the findings and recommendations we presented, describing them as a strong foundation for the future redesign of Decision Point. During our final meeting, they noted that several of our usability insights echoed internal observations from their own team that validating existing concerns with user experience.
At the same time, our research found new usability gaps the team hadn’t previously identified, offering fresh perspectives grounded in real user behavior. They expressed enthusiasm about taking these insights back to the product team and mentioned that this research will be used to guide future improvements and prioritization efforts.
Looking ahead, the Decision Point team shared interest in exploring how these recommendations could be integrated into their broader product roadmap and potentially revisiting additional areas of the platform for future testing and refinement.
REFLECTION ON WHAT I LEARNED
Designing Beyond Our Expertise
Working on a healthcare product like Decision Point pushed me to design for a field I wasn’t deeply familiar with. This experience taught me the importance of validating task flows and scenarios with subject-matter experts before conducting usability testing with participants. By consulting professionals early, we can ensure our study materials align with real-world use and avoid testing assumptions that don’t hold up in context.
Small Changes, Big Impact
When a client offers a “blue sky” opportunity with no design constraints, it’s tempting to think big. But through this project, I learned that meaningful impact often comes from small, strategic changes. Proposals like relabeling, improving navigation paths, or simplifying UI structure may seem minor, but they can significantly improve usability without requiring a complete redesign. This mindset helped us deliver realistic, high-impact recommendations that the client was excited to implement.
APPENDIX
Usability Report
As part of the project, our team wrote a usability report that details our research process, findings, and recommendations thoroughly, as a reference for Medscape.
View Report
Project Presentation
At the end of our usability study, we presented our process and findings to the Medscape team, followed with an open session to answer any questions they have.
View Presentation