Designing Omnia Group’s Dynamic Digital Narrative
DBS Interactive DBS Interactive
Omnia Group contacted DBS to partner with them on a redesign of multiple healthcare websites in its network. Omnia needed to stand out in a competitive post-acute care sector while addressing staffing shortages and catering to an aging population with complex healthcare needs.
The new websites were envisioned as tools to address these challenges and position Omnia as a thought leader in the industry.
Our goals included enhancing user experience (UX), modernizing and unifying subsidiary brands under the Omnia umbrella, and customizing the design and features to the needs of different stakeholders, including potential residents, caregivers, employees, and investors.
The project focused on creating a modern, user-friendly website for the holding company and new websites for two of the company’s operating companies, Pavilion and Citadel.
The team at DBS designed and launched Omnia’s three websites with modern aesthetics, intuitive navigation, robust SEO, and brand messaging to attract and convert various audience personas online.
Challenges
At the beginning of the website project, we identified our key challenges and potential roadblocks. Identifying these obstacles helped us set realistic expectations and allocate project resources efficiently.
Cohesive Branding and Design
One of the project’s notable challenges was creating distinct designs for each website while maintaining a cohesive brand identity across all three. The sites had to strike a delicate balance between uniqueness and consistency so that each Omnia holding and operating company website was clearly unified beneath the Omnia brand umbrella.
Each website had to reflect the brand identity established in their communities. So, the design team incorporated consistent brand expressions such as colors, typography, and imagery across all websites, creating a harmonious yet distinctive online presence for Omnia and its subsidiaries.
Centralizing and Streamlining Content Production
The site uses Craft’s multi-site platform to manage three sites in one system.
Another significant challenge was needing a content management system (CMS) that could leverage economies of scale.
The aim was to provide website managers with a centralized platform that streamlined production and allowed efficient content management across multiple websites.
The choice required careful consideration of the CMS’s capabilities to handle diverse content types, user permissions, and workflow processes while ensuring ease of use for administrators.
Showcasing Omnia’s Extensive Regional Presence
The search tool returns multiple results based on input criteria.
Integrating Google mapping to display facility locations while filtering for services offered across multiple locations posed a development challenge. The goal was to provide website visitors with a dynamic and interactive map that showcased Omnia’s extensive regional footprint and allowed users to filter locations based on specific services they were interested in.
Key Objectives and Strategies
The project’s objectives were multifaceted: UX enhancement, talent and resident acquisition, brand elevation, efficient content delivery, accessibility, and technical standards.
To achieve these objectives, a thorough strategy phase was conducted, including identifying user personas, defining user stories, creating a comprehensive sitemap, developing a content matrix, designing style tiles, wireframing primary templates, and creating mockups to visualize the end product.
A Platform Built For Success and Flexibility
While many websites are built on WordPress, we chose Craft for Omnia’s project.
Craft’s platform stands out among content management systems for its focused approach, flexibility, and stability.
Unlike WordPress, which evolved from a blogging platform, Craft CMS prioritizes content management and customization. It offers a cleaner interface and easily accommodates custom integrations and added solutions. It also emphasizes performance and security.
Craft CMS’s multi-site functionality is also ideal for organizations like Omnia that must share content across various sites while maintaining localized variations.
Omnia’s footprint has large non-English speaking audiences. Craft makes managing content for these groups more efficient. Using Craft’s powerful Matrix field, a manager can create a single piece of content and share it across multiple sites for regional or language-specific variations.
Craft’s scalability and flexibility will also be important as the company plans to expand with additional companies, facilities, services, and partnerships.
Craft CMS Installation, Features, and Tools
Freeform expands the functionality of Craft CMS, enabling users to build customized forms for collecting data, feedback, inquiries, and more.
- We incorporated a robust form builder with a friendly UI, allowing many third-party integrations.
- We installed an all-in-one SEO solution for setting meta descriptions, keywords, sitemaps, etc.
We reduced data duplication by extending existing field groups and simplifying nested field groups.- We added a more elaborate content editing feature with features for HTML, button and link formatting, text alignment, and more.
- We installed tools for organizing and managing different types of content, like text, images, videos, and other media, in groupings and complex “nested matrix” fields.
- We made video embedding easier by creating a particular field type in layout components.
- We enabled the injection of custom CSS so the formatting in text editors more accurately reflects the front-end rendering of content.
- We enabled the injection of custom Javascript to add text editor functionality and additional formatting options.
Integrating best practices such as progressive web app (PWA) development, ADA compliance, and technical SEO optimization ensured that the websites meet current standards and future-proof Omnia’s digital presence.
Measuring Success and Looking Ahead
The project’s success will be measured through the three websites’ key performance indicators (KPIs), such as user interactions and conversions, content engagement metrics, site speed performance, organic search traffic, and overall user satisfaction. Omnia can enhance its online presence and achieve its business objectives by continuously monitoring these metrics and making data-driven optimizations.
Omnia Healthcare Group’s website development project highlights the critical role of strategic planning and collaboration in navigating challenges, implementing innovative solutions, and delivering a cohesive online presence.
