Project Info
| Client: | Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) |
| Project: | MyHealthfinder Website redesign: preventive health recommendations tool |
| Role: | Lead Designer: led visual redesign, refreshed brand identity, authored brand guidelines, and created flexible page templates |
| Skills: | Visual design, Branding, Web design, Information architecture, Accessibility |
| Software: | Illustrator, Photoshop, Figma |
| Designed Materials: | Website redesign | Brand Guidelines |
| Website: | health.gov/myhealthfinder |
| Awards: | 2023 ClearMark Award for Best Digital Product |
Opportunity
MyHealthfinder is a federal prevention and wellness resource that helps people find personalized health recommendations based on age, sex, and pregnancy status. The site provides evidence-based health information in English and Spanish and is designed to be integrated into healthcare patient portals nationwide. The existing site was visually outdated and difficult to navigate. The biggest problem: users were forced through an assessment tool to access any health information, creating a barrier for people who wanted to browse topics directly. ODPHP needed a complete redesign that modernized the brand, opened up content access, created clear information hierarchy across almost 100 prevention topics, and ensured full accessibility compliance.
Approach
Refreshed the Brand Identity
Modernized MyHealthfinder’s outdated early-2000s aesthetic while keeping elements the client valued (the apple symbol). Redesigned the logo with updated typography and a clean, flat apple design. Expanded the color palette and selected accessible typefaces, ensuring the brand felt current and trustworthy for a tool integrated into healthcare systems nationwide.
Built a Color-Coded Wayfinding System
Collaborated with the UX designer on information architecture, then created a visual navigation system using color and iconography to help users understand content relationships across three levels: Supercategory, Category, and Topic. Established four supercategories (Health Conditions, Doctor Visits, Healthy Living, Pregnancy), each with a distinct color and icon that carried through all nested pages. To meet accessibility requirements, ensured color wasn’t the only distinguishing factor by pairing each supercategory with unique icons and clear text labels, giving users multiple visual reference points as they navigated the site.
Opened Up Content Access
Redesigned the site architecture to let users browse topics directly instead of forcing everyone through the assessment tool. The tool became one path to information rather than the only path, significantly improving access for users who knew what they needed or wanted to explore prevention topics.
Created Flexible, Bilingual Templates
Designed adaptable templates for multiple page types: homepage, assessment results, quiz pages, supercategory landing pages, category pages, and nearly 100 topic pages. Created complete Spanish mockups to ensure typography and layouts worked effectively in both languages and to facilitate user testing with Spanish-speaking audiences. Built Section 508 compliant layouts that worked across devices and could accommodate diverse content types while maintaining visual consistency.
Designed for Integration and Collaboration
Created prototypes and participated in user testing sessions to refine the design. Later integrated elements from the Take Good Care campaign (including a geometric pattern used in topic page imagery) into the site. Collaborated with UX designers, content strategists, developers, and ODPHP stakeholders throughout the 26-week redesign process and continue to support ongoing updates.
Impact
Reflection
This project taught me how to balance visual modernization with the trust required for a federal health resource used by healthcare systems nationwide. The biggest challenge was visualizing complex content relationships across nearly 100 topics at multiple hierarchy levels. Creating a color-coded wayfinding system that felt intuitive required careful iteration with the UX team. Opening up the site from a tool-only experience to browsable content was critical, recognizing that people need different paths to health information. Designing for bilingual use meant creating complete Spanish mockups to ensure the visual system worked across languages, not just translating English designs. The results validated our approach: users accessed nearly 50% more health topics and found information 40% faster. This project strengthened my ability to create scalable design systems that serve immediate needs while remaining flexible for future evolution.