Project role & responsibility

As Design Lead, I was responsible for the end-to-end product design, leading the project from discovery and concept through UX, UI, prototyping and delivery. For the first 6 months, I was the sole designer, establishing the product vision, user experience, interface design and design system foundations.

As the programme grew, I recruited and onboarded a Senior UI Designer and worked alongside Spire Healthcare's Senior UX Designer. I remained accountable for the overall design vision, quality and delivery across the programme.

Impact

Overview

Spire’s digital platform spanned multiple hospitals, services, and specialisms, resulting in fragmented patient journeys, inconsistent information architecture, and high drop-off in online bookings.

Challenges

• Fragmented IA — no consistent hierarchy across hospitals and services

• Booking abandonment caused by a convoluted, multi-step online flow

• Routine tasks forced through an overloaded call centre

• Legacy CMS constraints preventing scalable content delivery

Research

Research focused on uncovering systemic barriers rather than isolated pain points

• Patients struggled to understand next steps and journey paths

• Convoluted booking system caused abandonment

• Existing navigation and IA did not reflect user mental models

• Mobile-first interactions were critical for usability and speed

Insights informed

• IA restructuring

• Guided flows

• Simplified communication
  
  These ensured a confident & frictionless patient experience.

Midway through discovery, pressure mounted to begin wireframes before the IA was validated. I held the position to validate IA, a decision that prevented a significant structural rework three months later.

Design execution

Design ideation and iterations were structured around generating:
Pencil sketches –> Hi-fidelity wireframes –> Interactive prototypes

Usability testing

A series of moderated and unmoderated customer usability tests were run that surfaced key insights for

• Booking journeys

• Navigation and IA

• Search

Summary of findings were taken and used to further improve the experience.

Design solutions

The pillars that transformed the patient experience

The design transformation was structured around 4 strategic pillars:

2

Information Architecture and Navigation

Simplified IA aligned to patient needs, consistent across hospitals and services, scalable for future content

• Location setting for personalisation

• Flexible mega-menu L1/L2/promo structure

• Simplified nomenclature

4

Design System and Visual Rebrand

1. To ensure consistency and scalability across all digital touch points a comprehensive Design System was developed and aligned with Spire Healthcare’s visual rebrand. Reusable components and interaction patterns were developed for:

   – Consistency

   – Accessibility

   – Efficient delivery of future features

Results

Online bookings increased 40% within six months of launch, with a 35% reduction in call centre demand.

Reflection

• Early IA validation prevents costly redesign cycles

• Simplifying complex medical language significantly improves conversion

• Hands-on craft alongside strategic leadership drives credible, actionable design decisions

• Scalable design systems and IA are critical for enterprise digital platforms

Tools & platforms

Team credits

• Design Tim Wolf (Lead), Omair Barkatulla (UI), Joby Bridgen (UX)

• Engineering Rob Newman (Principle), Sophie Jackson-Lee (Senior dev), Raja Chandran (Dev)

• Testing/Accessibility Michael Close (Lead), Shyam Chandar (Senior QA)

• Delivery James Surgeon (Director), Chee Lau (Lead), Aine Pilkington-Scott (Manager)

• Delivery Support KPMG Tech Strategy & Curve Cloud Teams