Following a light rebrand for their 10th anniversary in 2025, the Coalition wanted their website to reflect their mission more fully.
The Challenge
The Chronic Disease Coalition advocates on behalf of patients with chronic diseases and helps those patients advocate for themselves. After a light rebrand for their 10th anniversary in 2025, the Coalition wanted their website to reflect that mission more fully. The site looked dated, offered almost no search functionality, and didn't connect the dots between the Coalition's policy and advocacy work and the real people it serves.
Our Approach
We started with competitive research, reviewing the websites of peer organizations to identify what features most effectively demonstrated impact for patients, advocates, and partners. That research, combined with a full audit of the Coalition's nearly 1,000 pages, articles, and files, gave us a clear picture of what to keep, what to cut, and what to create.
The guiding principle for every change was a "patients first" lens. That meant rethinking the site from the ground up, not just the visuals, but the language and structure.
We overhauled the top-level navigation, replacing action-oriented but ambiguous labels like "Get Educated" and "Join the Fight" with clear, mission-aligned titles: Advocacy, Policy, Our Ambassador Program.
We clarified calls to action and reorganized menus so the site's architecture reflected how the Coalition's audiences think about its work.
On the content side, the changes were the most meaningful:
We updated the site's tagline to "Patients First. Progress Together."
We replaced the home page header video — previously featuring generic imagery of protestors and people exercising — with scenes showing patients at pharmacies, families at home, and researchers at work.
We brought featured news above the fold, added a new About Chronic Disease page with clear, accessible messaging about the impact of chronic illness, and connected Coalition ambassadors directly to the news stories, videos, and resources that feature them.
We also worked with the Coalition's web developer to expand search functionality across the entire site, adding content filters and results that include ambassador profiles, articles, and resources, not just news.
Our Results
The refreshed site was delivered one week ahead of schedule and completed within three months. Site content was reduced by 25% while patient-related content was increased by 25%.
During the period May 1, 2026-July 31, 2026, the refreshed Coalition site saw significant increases in active users, new users and user engagement compared to the same period in 2025. Views of key pages including the News, Our Ambassadors and Contact Elected Leaders pages also increased significantly during this period compared to the same period in 2025.
What Made This Work
Advocacy organizations often have a gap between the people they serve and the way they talk about their work. Closing that gap using clearer language, more prominent patient voices, and a site structure that reflects the Coalition's mission was a communications challenge as much as a design one. By leading with strategy and research before touching a single page, we made sure every change served a purpose.
“Amy really knows how to use storytelling to drive change. She adds incredible value, fixes things, thinks strategically and is wonderful with people. So many good things, and I’m very grateful to get to work with her!”