A heuristic evaluation of the Student Health Center website revealed that the site was not designed to meet the needs of the core audience – college students. A plan to create a Student Health Portal was proposed and the type and style of content students expect to see was suggested.

The aim of the project was to validate the assumption that creating a Student Health Portal that delivered health information in a format students preferred would be more effective than the current website. We also aimed to see where else the site did not meet student expectations.

We recruited students to participate in a focus group. Questions were designed to uncover how and what students look for when searching for health and other information online. We assessed how effective students thought the Student Health Center Website was in curating and delivering health information. The study was cleared by the school’s Institutional Review Board.

Students confirmed that the website did not present information clearly, some information was hard to find so students had to perform a Google search to lead them to the right page, other information was outdated with incomplete calls-to-action and yet, other information was geared towards prospective students and did not speak to them as current students. Students also confirmed that the center should embrace social media as a channel for dispersing health information. Emergent themes revealed that students were looking for 3 Cs in their search for health information: Convenience, Connection and Care. These themes are already being incorporated in the current website and should be used to inform the design of the Student Health Portal to provide the most beneficial solution for student users.